LONDON (Reuters) – London’s High Court ruled on Friday that almost 300 former rugby players seeking legal action against three governing bodies for neurological injuries will have to wait until next year for their group litigation order (GLO) application to be decided.
Rylands Garth, the law firm representing 295 former players, has applied for a GLO in the case against World Rugby, England’s Rugby Football Union, and the Welsh Rugby Union, which would allow the individual lawsuits to be managed together.
Judge Jeremy Cook announced on Friday that the application will be heard in April or May next year.
The claimants are alleging that the three governing bodies failed to implement reasonable measures to protect the health and safety of players.
In court filings, their lawyer Susan Rodway stated that the defendants “should have known of the likelihood of long-term neurological complications due to cumulative concussive or sub-concussive blows to the head”.
This alleged failure is said to have led to disorders such as motor neurone disease, early onset dementia, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, epilepsy, and Parkinson’s disease.
Rodway also mentioned that some of the individual cases, where players are suing for loss of earnings and the cost of future care, could be valued “well into the tens of millions” of pounds.
While World Rugby, the RFU, and WRU did not address the merits of the lawsuits at Friday’s hearing, they are defending the claims.
They released a joint statement earlier this week expressing their inability to comment on the case or contact players, as they had not yet received full details of the claims.
“We would want players involved to know that we listen, we care and continue to champion player welfare as the sport’s number one priority,” they said.
“Players and parents can have confidence that rugby is as safe as a contact sport can be. Rugby will always be led by the latest science when taking any action on player welfare.”
The rugby union case is one of three similar cases brought by Rylands Garth, which also represents former rugby league and soccer players.
(Reporting by Sam Tobin, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
