Trial date for concussion case delayed to 2025
Court calls for urgency as hearing ends in deadlock Players’ legal representatives must share full claim details
‘I don’t want to find ourselves in January with everyone arguing that they have not received the necessary disclosures’
A trial date in the concussion lawsuit involving dozens of players including World Cup winners Steve Thompson, Phil Vickery and Mark Regan against rugby union’s authorities will not be set until next year at the earliest.
Yesterday at the Royal Courts of Justice, Senior Master Cook rejected an application for a group litigation order as he admonished both sides for the slow exchange of information that was preventing a trial date being set. Cook warned the claimants, represented by Rylands Garth, and the defendants, including World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union and the Welsh Rugby Union, that it would be “untenable” to find themselves in the same position early next year.
In December, Rylands Garth revealed it was representing 295 players who it claimed were suffering a range of symptoms related to brain injuries they sustained during their careers. It must now supply medical records, including MRI scans and neuropsychologist reports, for all claimants by Oct 31.
Rugby’s authorities, meanwhile, must assist Rylands Garth in pursuing medical records from individual clubs worldwide relating to the players involved in the case by July.
Cook noted both sides faced a “Herculean task” to provide and analyse such information but was adamant progress had to be made after the third case management hearing, which is supposed to set the parameters for what can be disputed at trial, ended in more deadlock.
“I don’t want to find ourselves in January next year with everyone arguing that they have not received the necessary disclosures,” Cook said. Separate hearings will be heard for an application for a cohort of players to remain anonymous in the process as well as for the cost sharing by both sides.
Group litigation orders are commonly associated with industrial disease claims such as respiratory problems suffered by coal miners. This would allow Rylands to bunch the individual claims into a single group action. While it has offered a cohort of 45 players as test cases, Cook ruled that rugby authorities could not know if they were a representative sample until they had seen all the medical records.
Previewing a potential trial, Cook noted that causation “is going to be fiendishly difficult” to prove and urged both sides to be inventive and creative in the legal mechanism deployed. Rylands Garth is also taking a separate action against rugby league’s authorities.
A joint statement from World Rugby, RFU and WRU read: “The Court’s clear direction, that the players’ legal representatives must provide full details of the claims being made against us, including medical screening test results they are yet to share, enables everyone to move forward. As Senior Master Cook noted, there is ‘no way’ further progress can be made without the players’ legal representatives sharing this important information.
“The parties will now work towards sharing the information necessary to move this case forwards.”