Jarman, Smith, Tuck lead second concussion class action against AFL
15.03.2023
Jon Pierik – The Age
The AFL is facing a second class action over concussion, with former Adelaide premiership star Darren Jarman, Melbourne high-flyer Shaun Smith and the wife of late Richmond player Shane Tuck the lead plaintiffs in a case to be lodged this week.
South Australian-based lawyer Greg Griffin, having worked closely on the case with veteran player agent Peter Jess, said on Wednesday he would launch papers in the Victorian Supreme Court by close of business on Friday.
Former Adelaide and Port Adelaide player David Brown is also a lead plaintiff, while four-time Hawthorn premiership star John Platten, former Essendon and Geelong ruckman John Barnes, former Adelaide, West Coast and Collingwood player Chad Rintoul and former Brisbane and Collingwood defender Jack Frost – the latter with 14 concussions in six years – are among the “group members” Griffin says could ultimately number more than 200.
“We expect within the next 48 hours to issue in the Supreme Court of Victoria class action against the AFL and a number of AFL clubs in respect of the clients that we represent in the matter,” Griffin told The Age.
“The players that we represent are some of the most decorated and well-known footballers in the country. Peter Jess and myself started working on this eight years ago … but we regrettably feel this is going to be a very hard-fought litigation.”
Credit: The Age
Smith, who also played for North Melbourne, and won a historic $1.4 million concussion pay-out through insurance company MLC, is convinced he is living with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head. The condition can only be diagnosed after death.
“It’s not something you are going to know until you are gone, but if you look at what has happened to me clinically over my career, it is certain I have it,” Smith said on Wednesday.
“I have looked at the vision – you get knocked out in the second quarter, and you come back on.
“There are games I remember, and ones I don’t. I got whacked [playing for North Melbourne] in the ’87 elimination final – one of the few finals I played in – and came back and played like I was concussed. I don’t remember that game at all.
“It’s still a day-to-day proposition for me sometimes. I am one of the better ones – there are some players who don’t look like coming back from it.
“If the AFL were more upfront a decade ago, we wouldn’t have this issue, or if players were told to take out the total and permanent disability insurance, like I did, they may be better off. I just want the AFL to stop hiding.”
The AFL was contacted for comment. The league has made more than 30 changes to its concussion protocols, on-field rules and tribunal guidelines over the past two decades.
It released its updated 2023 guidelines this week, with the minimum break under the return-to-play protocols for a concussed player remaining at 12 days.
Katherine Tuck, the widow of Shane, and Griffin are involved in a coronial hearing over her husband’s suicide. A post-mortem examination found that the former Tiger had been suffering from CTE.
Jarman, the former Hawthorn and Crows star whose last-quarter heroics won Adelaide the 1997 premiership, still suffers from the impacts of head knocks.
“Darren suffers from ongoing issues. He has had numerous head knocks. He functions very well, he is entertaining, but he still struggles in some way as a result of head knocks and concussions,” Griffin said.
Platten, a Brownlow medallist and Magarey Medal winner, told The Age last year he has memory loss and headaches and fears he has CTE.
Griffin said he and his legal team have enlisted world-leading concussion medical authority, Dr Robert Cantu, in the case. Cantu is the medical director and director of clinical research at the Cantu Concussion Center in Concord, Massachusetts.
“We have the players, their medical evidence, and for the last three years we have analysed open-sourced AFL games and can break down as a consequence of our video analysis games frame by frame which highlight the certain number of concussions players have experienced, and the failure of their clubs to either remove them from the field of play when they are clearly concussed, or to allow them to return in breach of any sensible return-to-protocol, which was created by Dr Cantu in 1986,” Griffin said.
“Since 1986, the AFL has been aware of the Cantu return to play protocols.”
The Griffin class action follows papers lodged on Tuesday by Margalit Injury Lawyers on behalf of players employed by one or more AFL clubs between 1985 and Tuesday who either suffered concussion or damage from concussions.
Credit: Getty Images. Artwork: Stephen Kiprillis, The Age
Dual Geelong premiership player Max Rooke is the lead plaintiff, having suffered between 20 and 30 concussions. He is one of seven or more players involved in the action.
Western Bulldogs premiership player Liam Picken and former Collingwood AFLW vice-captain Emma Grant have also launched separate cases in the past fortnight.
Jess has repeatedly said a class action could have been avoided had the AFL established a no-fault insurance fund for past players impacted by braun trauma. The AFL, through Gordon Legal, have been debating a concussion fund, with funds potentially linked to a new collective bargaining agreement between players and the AFL.
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