Injuredonthejob
Pro athletes, like roustabouts and construction crews, sometimes must fight for workers’ comp
THEcareer of Brett Hartmann came to a sudden end in 2011 when the rookie punter for the Houston Texans caught his foot between two seams of in-laid grass on the field at Reliant (now NRG) Stadium and tore apart his knee.
“I just knew something bad had happened,” he said at a news conference. “My knee popped and snapped, and that was pretty much it.”
Hartmann never played again and sued the Harris County Convention & Sport Corp. for negligence for using a turf system that created an uneven playing surface, settling the case last year for a confidential sum. But Hartmann couldn’t sue the Texans for the career-ending injury; as an employee of the team, he was covered by workers’ compensation, the insurance program that pays injured workers for lost wages and medical care, while giving employers immunity from lawsuits.
Much like injured construction workers, tree trimmers and roustabouts, National Football League players and other pro athletes with multimillion-dollar contracts are covered by workers’ compensation, which under the law in Texas and other states, bars workers from suing employers for work-related injuries and illnesses and requires all claims to go through the workers’ comp system.
That means injured players can’t sue their own teams for poor field designs, hazardous conditions or degenerative brain disease from repeated blows to the head. They are also subject to the same income replacement limits as any other worker: $913 a week in Texas.
The reduced legal and financial responsibility has made it easier for NFL teams to downplay safety issues on the field, legal experts say, much as some employers in less glamorous industries calculate that it costs less to accept injuries than make the workplace safer — a characterization the NFL disputes.
“For the NFL, workers’ compensation is a great deal,” said Houston lawyer Michael P. Doyle. “It’s a cheap way to handle injuries to employees.”
And in the NFL, all players get injured. Most pro athletes don’t face the same financial strains as other injured
workers and most have access to lawyers, agents and financial advisers to help them navigate the complicated system. But injured players still face some of the same struggles, having to fight for payments and medical care against denials of benefits by employers and insurers.
The Texans, for example, rejected the workers’ compensation claim of quarterback T.J. Yates after he injured his knee in 2015 during a game against the Indianapolis Colts. Yates, who went without a football salary for nearly a year before he signed with the Miami Dolphins in December, is still contesting the Texans’ denial of his income replacement benefits through administrative appeals.
The Texans declined to comment.
Yates, the first Texans quarterback to win a playoff game, was earning $750,000 a year when he was injured. He said he is able to get along just fine without the $913 a week from workers’ compensation. “It’s not putting a crimp in my lifestyle.”
But qualifying for workers’ compensation coverage is critical to players because, in Texas and other states, the program covers medical costs related to on-the-job injuries for life. The average career in the NFL is 3.2 years. While superstars generally leave the league set for life, less famous players often face financial struggles when their playing days — and big checks — come to an end.
Players, for example, may need knee replacements years or decades after the initial injuries, or need treatments and medical services related to brain injuries caused by repeated concussions. Yates, 29, said that when he came into the league in 2011, veterans urged him to report injuries; he has filed several workers’ compensation claims during his career.
“It protects you later in life,” Yates said. “No one thinks of injuries when you first join the league.”
Workers’ compensation was adopted across the United States more than 100 years ago as a no-fault insurance program to get benefits to injured employees quickly, while protecting companies from lawsuits and damage awards that might put them out business. Texas is the only state in which companies are not required to carry workers’ comp.
Union officials and labor advocates say the difficulties that Yates and other professional football players face in pursuing workers’ compensation claims — despite teams of lawyers and other advisers — underscore how the system can be stacked against workers.
In Texas, for example, insurance companies hire lawyers to defend decisions to deny benefits to injured workers, but injured workers can’t hire lawyers to obtain those benefits. Nearly three decades ago, Texas adopted a law that prohibits lawyers from accepting money to contest denials of benefits, whether for medical care, wage replacement, or both.
“It is completely unfair,” said Rick Levy, secretary of the Texas AFL-CIO.
Over the past few years, NFL players and their union have tried to fend off efforts by the league to reduce workers’ compensation benefits. In California in 2013 the National Football League led a successful lobbying effort to bar professional athletes from filing workers’ compensation claims in California if they spent most of their careers outside the state.
The next year, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees helped to beat back efforts led by the Saints to change the way benefits are calculated in Louisiana for professional athletes. Instead of paying players based on their annual salary, the bill would have calculated wages according to players’ earnings at the time of injury, including preseason and post-season, when players make less than during the regular season.
“The job of legislators in Louisiana is to protect injured workers and fight for their workers’ comp benefits,” Brees said at the time, “not find ways to support bills like this one which reduce the workers’ comp benefits we receive when we get hurt.”
In a statement, the NFL said workers’ compensation benefits are only one component of the league’s efforts to help injured players. The league offers an array of medical and non-medical benefits, including health care during the year they are injured and tax-advantaged health savings accounts that can be used to cover medical expenses. The Texans referred questions on workers’ compensation to the NFL.
Few NFL contracts are guaranteed, so an injury can quickly put a player out of a job. And once the big checks come to an end and players no longer have access to team physicians, players turn to workers’ compensation for continuing medical care. And, like other workers who have to fight for coverage, football players are finding medical benefits are not always easy to get.
Scientific evidence is building that repetitive head injuries can lead over the long term to a fatal degenerative brain disorder known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy or CTE. The disease often begins with headaches and later impairs cognitive reasoning, eventually becoming full-blown dementia.
In November, nearly 40 former players, including Ernest Givins, who played as a wide receiver for the Houston Oilers from 1986 to 1994, and Charlie Clemons, a linebacker for the Texans in 2003, sued the NFL and its 32 teams, seeking medical benefits under workers’ compensation for head traumas suffered during their playing days. The suit, filed in Florida, alleges the teams failed to care for repetitive head injuries during games and practice sessions “in any medically competent or meaningful manner” and they are now entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. The NFL said the case has no merit.
In December, the case was withdrawn because, according to published reports, the cases must be filed in individual states.
Former players have also sued the NFL over head trauma they’ve suffered over repeated concussions. While admitting no fault, the NFL agreed to settle the 2012 class action lawsuit by agreeing to pay an estimated $1 billion over 65 years to former players who have been diagnosed with brain injuries linked to repeated concussions.
The settlement covers more than 20,000 former players, with the average payout expected to be about $190,000. The settlement does not cover current players.
The players were able to sue the NFL outside the workers’ compensation system because the league was not their direct employer. It’s an example of a third-party claim in which workers file suit against other companies that might have contributed to their injuries. For example, DeMeco Ryans, a linebacker who began his career with the Texans in 2006, was playing for the Philadelphia Eagles in 2014 when he tore his Achilles tendon at NRGStadium. He also blamed poor turf conditions for the injury that ended his career.
In October, Ryans sued the Texans, the NFL, and the Harris County Convention & Sports Corp., which owns the stadium, alleging the failure to replace or repair the field’s turf led to his injury. He is seeking more than $10 million in damages. Ryans, however, could not sue the Eagles, his employer, because he was covered by workers’ compensation.
Hartmann, the Texans punter who won an undisclosed settlement from the Harris County Convention & Sports Corp., was cut by the Texans in August 2012. Hartmann, who could not be reached for comment, is permanently disabled, according to his lawsuit, and living in his home state of Wisconsin.
Yates played briefly in a playoff game between the Dolphins and Pittsburgh Steelers earlier this month after Miami’s starting quarterback, Matt Moore, was knocked out of the game for one play. (The Dolphins lost). Injuries are part of the game, Yates said, and most NFL athletes accept that — giving little thought to the risks of the long-term disabilities and costs of medical care after they retire from the sport.
“You play college football and think, maybe I can play professionally,” said Yates. “You will do absolutely anything to get on the NFL roster.” lm.sixel@chron.com twitter.com/lmsixel