Several former professional wrestlers who claimed in lawsuits that World Wrestling Entertainment could not protect them from repeated head injuries are taking their cases to the US Supreme Court.
A lawyer for the former wrestlers filed a petition on Wednesday asking the Supreme Court to hear appeals against lower court rulings that dismissed the lawsuits, saying they were filed after the statute of limitations expired. The WWE says the lawsuits are unfounded and believes the appeals will not succeed.
The plaintiffs include William “Billy Jack” Haynes, Russ “Big Russ” McCullough, Ryan Sakoda, Matthew “Luther Reigns” Wiese and the wife of the late Nelson “Viscera” Frazier, aka Big Daddy V, who died in 2014 .
They were among more than 50 former wrestlers, most of them stars in the 1980s and 1990s, who sued the WWE and said they suffered repeated head injuries, including concussions that led to long-term brain damage. They accused WWE, based in Stamford, Connecticut, of being aware of the risks of head injuries, but not warning the wrestlers. A number of the lawsuits were dismissed by a lower federal court in 2018.
The other wrestlers who filed charges included Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, Joseph “Road Warrior Animal” Laurinaitis, Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff, Chris “King Kong Bundy” Pallies and Harry Masayoshi Fujiwara, known as Mr. Fuji .
Snuka and Fujiwara died in 2017 and 2016, respectively, and were diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, after their death, according to their lawyer. Pallies and Laurinaitis died of unknown causes in 2019 and 2020, respectively. Other plaintiffs have dementia and other illnesses, the lawsuit said.
In September, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City dismissed several lawsuits, including some that it said were overdue. The court upheld the 2018 rulings of federal judge Vanessa Bryant in Connecticut, who said there was no evidence WWE knew that concussions or head strikes during wrestling matches caused CTE.
The former wrestlers’ lawyer, Konstantine Kyros, based in Hingham, Massachusetts, criticized the rulings, saying the former wrestlers have “been deprived of their fundamental rights as US citizens, including their right to appeal.”
Kyros said the 2nd Circuit court dismissed previous appeals because not all of the lawsuits had final rulings. After Bryant made those final verdicts in 2018, Kyros has filed appeals in several lawsuits that are now pending in the Supreme Court. But he said the 2nd Circuit had dismissed those appeals, saying they were late according to a new precedent set by the Supreme Court.
Jerry McDevitt, a WWE attorney, said he did not think the attempt to revive the five wrestlers’ lawsuits will succeed.
In her 2018 ruling, Bryant also criticized Kyros for repeatedly failing to comply with court rules and orders and ordered him to pay WWE’s legal fees – more than $ 500,000.
Unlike football and hockey, in which players have suffered similar injuries, WWE matches include moves written and choreographed by the WWE, putting the company directly responsible for wrestler injuries, the lawsuits said.
The National Football League and National Hockey League have also been sued by former players who suffered concussions and other head injuries. The NFL settled for $ 1 billion, while the NHL settled for $ 18.9 million.