Supreme Court Declines To Hear NFL Concussion Settlement Appeals

The U.S. Supreme Court today declined to hear appeals of the NFL concussion settlement, finally paving the way for the deal to close five years after the initial litigation was filed. The 65-year settlement could pay up to if not more than $1B in claims to former players, nearly 12,000 of whom have pre-registered. “Based upon registration rates and what that is foreshadowing, participating rates will likely exceed (what we had) when we were running our actuarial computations,” class co-counsel Chris Seeger told reporters today.

The NFL admitted no guilt as part of the settlement, which will pay certain medical claims brought by former players. There are still roughly 150 individual lawsuits brought by retirees who opted out of the settlement. The appeals centered largely on the absence of the deal covering CTE.