WHERE CHATTERS GO TO TALK ABOUT OFF TOPIC STUFF!
www.yahoo.com/sports/ex-wrestling-stars-take-concussion-lawsuit-with-wwe-to-supreme-court-232105665.html
A lawyer for more than 50 former professional wrestlers suing WWE over brain damage has taken the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Attorney Konstantine Kyros filed the request on Wednesday after lower courts dismissed the suit as frivolous or beyond the statute of limitations, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press. The plaintiffs listed include star wrestlers from the 1980s and '90s, including Joseph “Animal” Laurinaitis of the Road Warriors, Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff, Chris “King Kong Bundy” Pallies and Harry Masayoshi Fujiwara, known in the ring as Mr. Fuji Snuka died in 2017, and Fujiwara died in 2016. Both were diagnosed after their deaths with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the disorder commonly associated with repeated head injuries suffered in football. Pallies died in 2019, and Laurinaitis died last year of undisclosed causes. Other plaintiffs have complained of dementia and other illnesses, according to the lawsuit. The suit accuses WWE of knowing the health risks of wrestling without warning participants and argues that WWE is more liable for injuries than sports like football because the organization scripts the matches that result in brain injury. The NFL settled a lawsuit over concussions with former players in 2016 for more than $1 billion. Federal judge Vanessa Bryant ruled in 2018 that there was no evidence that WWE knew at the time that collisions suffered in the wrestling ring would result in CTE. A WWE spokesperson told AP on Thursday that the lawsuit is without merit. It's not yet clear whether or not the Supreme Court will consider the case. Here is the major problem I see with this lawsuit: All the four wrestlers specifically listed, Road Warrior Animal, Jimmy Snuka, King Kong Bundy and Mr. Fuji (and very likely every other wrestler involved too), spent lots of time wrestling outside of the WWE. How do they prove that CTE they may have, was due to their time in a WWF/E ring, and not in the AWA, NWA, USWA, Japan, or other territory? Looking at their histories: Joe Laurinaitis wrestled as Road Warrior Animal for 30 years. He was only in the WWF/E for 11, and for 5 of those 11 years, was used only sporadically, not really as a full active member of the roster. Superfly Jimmy Snuka? In the WWF/E as an active wrestler for 9 years out of a career that spanned 47. King Kong Bundy? 6 WWF/E years out of 26 years as active wrestler. Mr. Fuji? As an active wrestler, he was in the WWWF/WWF/E for 11 years out of 20. He retired from active wrestling in 1985, and did manage in the WWF until he fully retired in 1996. But as a manager, he would not have been subject to the hits he took as an active wrestler, so I am not counting his managerial career. Then, these want to hold the WWE accountable for knowing the risks and not telling them...however, NOBODY knew about CTE in the 1970s-1990s. Not the WWE, not the NFL, nobody...because those level concussion studies just hadn't been done yet. How do they prove the WWE had the knowledge about CTE/concussions, when nobody else did? I mean, for every wrestler involved, wouldn't the WWE just have to produce tape of each wrestler, working for a non-WWE wrestling promotion, taking a chair shot, falling through a table, or performing some other dangerous wrestling related spot, to provide reasonable doubt that the CTE was a result of their time in the WWE? I don't want to sound like a WWE shill here, someone just defending them because they are the WWE...but, honestly, I don't see how these wrestlers can possibly hope to prove their case. If this goes to the Supreme Court, they will absolutely grill the lawyers on both sides, and frankly, the plaintiffs have a massive task ahead, to prove the WWE, and only the WWE, was negligent in warning them about CTE, in a time when nobody understood CTE...
Comments
|
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
February 2021
CategoriesOur sister Sites:
NCAA Chatters ncaachatters.weebly.com/ NFL Chatters nflchatters.weebly.com/ Patriots Place patriots-place.weebly.com/ MLB Chatters mlbchatters.weebly.com/ |
Photo used under Creative Commons from ColinD13