The widow of Jeffrey Staggs, a San Diego State linebacker who went on to play for the San Diego Chargers and who died in 2014 when he was 70, recently filed a lawsuit against the NCAA claiming wrongful death of her husband.
Sarah Staggs filed her complaint Aug. 27 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California after her husband's autopsy revealed that he had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease found in athletes and others with a history of repetitive brain trauma and concussions. Her suit claims her husband was “injured, incapacitated and died” as a result of the NCAA’s “reckless disregard for his health” while he played at San Diego State in 1965 and 1966," according to a posting on Fox 5 San Diego's website.
Paul Haagen, a Duke University law professor, recently discussed what lawsuits involving CTE, like Staggs' suit, mean for the future of contact sports and the NCAA
Paul Haagen
| duke.edu photo
"The rise in lawsuits is clearly just increasing litigation costs and wariness and matters like that," Haagen recently told Northern California Record. "I think you're going to see clearer and clearer warnings about the danger of contact sports and particularly football, but how much of a threat it constitutes, I think, is hard to know."
Haagen explained that at the high school level there have already been legislative and "quasi-legislative" responses in a few states where players can now receive insurance at low or no cost.
"We could see more of that kind of thing or legislative responses to protect the sport, or regulatory responses to require warnings, disclaimers and clearance of concussion protocol," Haagen said.
While there is still a lot up in the air about the outcome of this case, there are strategies which Haagen believes the NCAA could be taking now.
"This particular case, I would think, is going to have some pretty extraordinary proof problems because we don't actually know a great deal about what causes CTE," Haagen said, noting that Staggs filed the lawsuit after her husband had died, not while he was playing.
Haagen believes the NCAA should be directing its attention to raising awareness and fine-tuning its protocol.
"Proactively, they need better protocols relating to head injuries, protection of athletes and things like that, and protectively they should be insisting on a certain kind of waivers," Haagen said. "They should probably be developing some kind of statement that talk about the potential harms related to head injuries and try to get disclaimers, as they may need to get parents to sign these on behalf of their kids."