WWE lawsuit: Dozens of retired wrestlers sue former employer for brain injuries

The case echoes the National Football League lawsuit last year

Jimmy Snuka in the ring in the 1980s (swiftwj/Flickr/Creative Commons)

Dozens of wrestlers are suing World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) for allegedly failing to protect them from the effects of repeated neurological injuries whilst performing in the ring.

Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka and Joseph “The Road Warrior Animal” Laurinaitis are among 53 retired professional wrestlers and performers who suffered brain injuries during their WWE career and are suing their former employer.

Mr Snuka was represented by a guardian in court after a judge said last month he was mentally unfit to stand trail for the 1983 beating of his girlfriend to death. Mr Snuka said he had suffered from dementia due to repeated head trauma.

The lawsuit has been filed against Connecticut-based WWE and its chairman, Vince McMahon, as first reported by Bloomberg.

The case follows the National Football League and the National Hockey League, who were also sued for iinsufficient protection for former players. The NFL settled the case by stumping up $765 million for more than 5,000 former players.

The lawsuit says that WWE “routinely failed to care for the Named Plaintiffs' repetitive head injuries during their career in any medically competent or meaningful manner that complied with any known published contact sports return to play guidelines at the time the injuries occurred.”

Injuries obtained by the wrestlers include Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) as well as the effects of Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI).

Matches “involve very specific moves that are scripted, controlled, directed and choreographed by WWE. As such the moves that resulted in Named Plaintiffs' head injuries were the direct result of the WWE's actions,” read the court document.

The case also claims WWE “deliberately ignored and actively concealed ... medically important and possibly lifesaving information about specific neurological conditions like CTE that afflict wrestlers and contact sports athletes with similar clinical histories of head trauma.”

Wrestlers allege that WWE knows that such conditions can “result in suicide, drug abuse and violent behaviour that pose a danger to not only the athletes themselves but also their families and community.”

Wrestlers are independent contractors and not staff employees, therefore they claimed they had no recourse against WWE.

In a statement, WWE responded: “This is another ridiculous attempt by the same attorney who has previously filed class action lawsuits against WWE, both of which have been dismissed. A federal judge has already found that this lawyer made patently false allegations about WWE, and this is more of the same. We're confident this lawsuit will suffer the same fate as his prior attempts and be dismissed.”