The NHL is "citing as a legal precedent a lawsuit filed in the wake of the Columbine High School massacre" in '99 to "try to dismiss a claim filed by the family" of late NHLer Derek Boogaard, according to Rick Westhead of TSN.ca. The league "argues it cannot be sued for promoting and marketing violence because it is protected by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment protecting free speech." The NHL in its motion, filed Nov. 4 in federal court in Chicago, said that the same argument was "successfully made" in '01 by Acclaim Entertainment, the maker of the "Mortal Kombat" video game, after Columbine. The NHL also "argues in its motion that the league does not have a duty to share with players the findings of any of its research into the long-term impacts of concussions." Len Boogaard alleges in his lawsuit that the NHL is "responsible for his son’s death because the league cultivated a culture of violence that led to Boogaard getting into fights." He said that those fights "caused his son to develop brain damage and an addiction to opioids, which in turn led to his death." Boogaard "alleges that the NHL promoted and profited from violence" (TSN.ca, 11/8).
