Acadiana Business

Lafayette attorney reps players versus NFL

by Walter Pierce

Included in the most recent suit are Charlie Granger, Allen "Jubilee" Dunbar, Raymond Jones, Clint James, Willie Teal, Lyman White and Herman Fontenot.

Several former NFL players who had college careers at LSU and Southern University have filed a second class action lawsuit against the National Football League over concussion-related injuries and, the players contend, the NFL's failure to address and counteract the long-term repercussions of repeated head trauma suffered by former players.

McCorvey

Included in the most recent suit are Charlie Granger, Allen "Jubilee" Dunbar, Raymond Jones, Clint James, Willie Teal, Lyman White and Herman Fontenot. Lafayette attorney Derriel McCorvey has been appointed to serve on the Plaintiffs' Steering Committee, which is responsible for prosecuting the claims against the NFL and helmet manufacturer Riddell. McCorvey is himself a former NFL player who starred at LSU in the late 1980s and early '90s.

"With the National Football League being comprised of 67 percent minorities, my service on the PSC will ensure that former players have a representative at the table in this litigation when decisions are being made to achieve the best results for the players," McCorvey says in a press release announcing the suit, which  comes close on the heels of the death of recently retired and future Hall of Fame linebacker Junior Seau this month and the April death of former defensive back Ray Easterling. Both men died of apparent self-inflicted gunshot wounds and each complained about headaches and memory loss in the months leading up to his death. Easterling was diagnosed with dementia in 2011, and ESPN has reported that although Seau rarely missed a game during his 20-year career and was never listed on an injury report as having suffered a concussion, he confided in a friend that he had frequent headaches and had suffered countless concussions during his career.

The second suit being handled by McCorvey accusing the NFL and Riddell of fraud, negligence and failure to warn players about head trauma has been consolidated with a previous class action suit into a single suit and assigned to the Eastern District Court in Philadelphia, Penn.