After so many years of relative secrecy about claiming in asbestos litigation and some other "mass torts," it's refreshing to see fairly detailed, public claims data reported regarding NFL concussion claims. The data is set out in a report to the court, filed on January 26, 202, online here.
The report describes more than $800 million of payments. The report includes some informative charts and fairly detailed statistics, such as:
Further statistics are as follows, as reported by LAW360 in a January 27, 2021 article:
Law360 (January 27, 2021, 10:01 PM EST) -- The NFL concussion settlement has approved $819 million in claims and paid out $760 million as of the beginning of 2021, the settlement claims administrator told the Pennsylvania court overseeing the settlement administration in a status report this month.
As of Jan. 4, settlement administrators have approved 1,203 claims of monetary awards totaling $819,371,459, according to the status report filed by claims administrator BrownGreer PLC on Tuesday. The administrators have received claims for monetary awards from a total of 3,125 former NFL players or their representatives who have obtained qualifying diagnoses as of Jan. 4, roughly 19 percent of those who have properly registered with the settlement, the report said.
The landmark uncapped class settlement was reached in 2015, ending multidistrict litigation alleging the NFL hid the risks it knew about long-term brain damage from the repeated head trauma and concussions in football. The uncapped deal was reached after U.S. District Judge Anita Brody told the parties to make changes to an original $765 million settlement.
But the numbers suggest that the settlement is well on its way to exceeding the deal's $1 billion estimate over its 65-year period.
More than 20,000 former NFL players or their family members registered as class claimants, according to the settlement website. However, the status report says 16,138 retired players or representative claimants have "received favorable registration determinations."
Of the 3,125 monetary claims, the majority, 1,978, were for diagnoses that came before the effective date of the settlement, according to the status report. The number of claims for so-called post-effective date diagnoses is 898.
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