Report: Junior Seau’s family rejects NFL concussion settlement money
Junior Seau’s tragic 2012 suicide put concussions and head trauma on the national forefront, and in the subsequent years the National Football League and thousands of former players have settled a lawsuit based on the effects of concussions.
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The Seau’s were eligible to receive money from that lawsuit, but according to a report from ESPN.com, the family has “opted out” and won’t accept the money from the NFL.
It means that the Seau family will go ahead with its wrongful death lawsuit against the league.
For the Seau family they are looking to expose the truth of head trauma in the league and what happened to Seau in particular. It also appears that the family isn’t about to just let this go in any manner.
Seau family lawyer Steven Strauss released the following statement about rejecting the offer via the ESPN.com report:
"“The family want to know why this settlement seems designed for expediency for the NFL and to ensure that information doesn’t come out. And the Seau family wants the truth to come out. Since this litigation started, there hasn’t been one document produced, there hasn’t been one deposition taken. It seems very clearly designed to nip this in the bud and not have the truth come out, and that’s not acceptable to the Seau family, and it’s not acceptable to Junior’s legacy.”"
The settlement would have given certain players with ALS and CTE up to $4 million, but individual cases with in the class-action lawsuit have other complicated formulas for payment.
A judge preliminarily agreed to the settlement in June, and it’s unclear how many of the others in the class will opt out of the deal in the future.
This is a blow to the league, who were hoping to put the concussion issue to rest with the settlement. Some just aren’t willing to play by the parameters set up by the courts though, so this could drag on for some time.