{"id":10873,"date":"2013-09-03T18:30:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-03T18:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.brainstreams.ca\/the-nfl-concussion-settlement-four-blunt-points\/"},"modified":"2025-07-04T09:16:57","modified_gmt":"2025-07-04T16:16:57","slug":"the-nfl-concussion-settlement-four-blunt-points","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/the-nfl-concussion-settlement-four-blunt-points\/","title":{"rendered":"The NFL Concussion Settlement: Four Blunt Points"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"field field-type-link field-field-link-original-article\">\u00a0The National Football League\u2019s $765 million\u00a0<a title=\"BBW on settlement\" href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/articles\/2013-08-29\/nfl-scores-big-with-concussion-settlement\">concussion settlement<\/a>\u00a0with thousands of former players contains several surprises. Let\u2019s go to the replay for a closer look:<\/div>\n<p>For all its flaws, class-action litigation sometimes works.\u00a0Yes, yes, already-wealthy plaintiffs\u2019 lawyers are going to reap an as-yet unspecified windfall, probably tens of millions of dollars. And down the line there will be ugly disputes over which brain-damaged victims get precisely how much money. Still, the proposed settlement shows how grouping hundreds of lawsuits can force a deep-pocketed corporate defendant to realize that doing the right thing is the financially smart thing, as well.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/topics.bloomberg.com\/paul-swangard\/\">Paul Swangard<\/a>, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the<a title=\"Get Quote\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/quote\/85086MF:US\">University of Oregon<\/a>, told our cousins at\u00a0<a title=\"BN on settlement\" href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2013-08-30\/nfl-seen-saving-money-after-765-million-concussion-settlement.html\">Bloomberg News<\/a>\u00a0that the settlement makes sense for the NFL because the league takes in nearly $10 billion in annual revenue and will make payouts over 20 years. \u201cIt\u2019s a win-win in that it provides immediate relief to those who have suffered and played in an era where it appeared they were much more susceptible to this type of injury,\u201d he said. \u201cIt puts money where it needs to go.\u201d Without the courtroom pressure, the NFL wouldn\u2019t have acted as swiftly or dramatically.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, the settlement obscures hard truths.\u00a0The adversarial system, in theory, unearths misconduct: Incriminating documents are disclosed, recalcitrant witnesses cross-examined. Legal compromise, in contrast, leaves buried secrets safely entombed. The plaintiffs in this case accused the NFL of seeking to suppress medical research linking on-field collisions to crippling and fatal illnesses. If it happened, that\u2019s some seriously evil behavior. Now we won\u2019t get a definitive answer.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessweek.com\/articles\/2013-08-30\/the-nfl-concussion-settlement-four-blunt-points\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read More&gt;&gt;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0The National Football League\u2019s $765 million\u00a0concussion settlement\u00a0with thousands of former players contains several surprises. Let\u2019s go to the replay for a closer look: For all its flaws, class-action litigation sometimes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10873\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/messageinabottle.ca\/bcbia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}