The daughters of former Judson and Texas running back Chris Samuels, who died by suicide two years ago, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the NFL. He is shown carrying the ball for Judson in a 1986 game against Churchill.
Dennis Dunleavy/San Antonio Express-News
The daughters of former Judson and Texas running back Chris Samuels, who died by suicide two years ago, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the NFL. He’s shown carrying the ball for Texas in a 1990 game against Arkansas.
Dave Einsel/Houston Chronicle
After the 2021 death by suicide of former Judson and Texas running back Chris Samuelshis family donated his brain to Boston University for examination.
University researchers, renowned for their study of the long-term consequences of repetitive brain trauma in athletes, military personnel and others, concluded that Samuels had advanced chronic traumatic encephalopathyor CTE. It’s a brain disease linked to concussions or repeated blows to the head and is closely associated with football.
With those findings in hand, Samuels’ two daughters, on behalf of his estate, recently filed a wrongful death and negligence lawsuit against the National Football League — alleging its negligence was a “proximate cause” of his death at age 52.
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Samuels played three games in the NFL for the San Diego Chargers after the club selected him in the 12th round of the 1991 draft.
Despite his brief professional career, the suit says he experienced “repetitive traumatic brain impacts,” which increased his risk for developing “neurodegenerative disorders and diseases” — including CTE and Alzheimer’s disease.
The NFL had a “duty to provide safe working conditions for professional football players” for decades ignored and “actively concealed the risks to players of repetitive sub-concussive and concussive head impacts,” the complaint adds.
Samuels’ daughters, Jordan Stewart and Samantha Stotts, as executors of his estate, are seeking more than $1 million in damages from the NFL, NFL Properties LLC and NFL Enterprises LLC. The suit was filed Nov. 13 in state District Court in San Antonio.
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NFL representatives didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.
Football career
In his three games with the Chargers, Samuels carried the ball twice for 10 yards and had two receptions for 33 yards.
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The Bexar County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled his Nov. 26, 2021, death a suicide. He died from a gunshot wound to the chest. He had been found in a bathroom in a home on Rittiman Road near Alamo Heights.
Samuels’ family sent his brain to Boston University less than two months after his death. A neuropathology report completed about seven months later diagnosed him with “Stage III/IV” CTE, the lawsuit says.
In stage 3, a person can have cognitive defects, including memory loss and executive dysfunction, according to scientific literature from the National Institute of Health’s National Library of Medicine. In stage 4, a person presents with advanced language deficits, profound cognitive deficits and psychotic symptoms, including paranoia.
Samuels had Alzheimer’s disease, along with other cognitive-impairing conditions, and “endured extreme conscious physical pain, suffering and mental anguish,” the lawsuit alleges. His daughters seek damages for past and future mental anguish, as well as over the loss of companionship, earning capacity and inheritance. They also are asking for punitive damages.
CTE study
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Earlier this year, doctors from Boston University and Massachusetts General Hospital released results of a study looking at the relationships between the force of blows to the head and CTE in 631 male brain donors who had played football.
On average, the donors had played about 12 years of football and died at age 60, according to a report on the study posted on the NIH’s website. The study found 163 had low-stage CTE and 288 had high-stage CTE. About 28%, or 180, had no CTE.
The number of years playing football and other factors were associated with CTE, the research found. Every additional year of playing football increased the odds of a CTE diagnosis by 15 percent and, for those with CTE, 14% increased odds of severe CTE.
The study suggested that “changes to how football players practice and play” could reduce CTE risk, said Massachusetts General Hospital’s Dr. Daniel Daneshwar.
In 2015, the NFL and ex-players entered into a more than $1 billion settlement that resolved lawsuits accusing it of concealing what it knew about the risks of repeated concussions. The settlement provides financial awards to ex-players diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. But it does not cover CTE — except for those diagnosed with it posthumously before April 2015, a deadline set to avoid incentivizing suicide, the Associated Press reported last year.
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The Samuels lawsuit isn’t the first time the family of an ex-player has filed a wrongful death action against the NFL. In 2013, the family of star linebacker Junior Seau — who died at 43 in 2012 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest — sued the league. The family later reached a confidential settlement with the NFL after reportedly opting out of the concussion settlement.
It isn’t clear how lawyers for Samuels’ daughters intend to prove his brain disorder came from playing in the NFL. The lawyers didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Other cases
Similar lawsuits have been filed against universities.
Alonzo Adams’ March 31 wrongful death lawsuit against South Carolina State University alleges his son suffered head trauma during his college career from 2006 to 2009. The suit also says he sustained head trauma during his NFL career but the league was not named as a defendant. He played as a defensive back for six teams from 2010 to 2015.
A 2021 autopsy revealed Adams had unusually severe brain disease in his frontal lobe and stage 2 CTE, the Associated Press reported.
The university wants the lawsuit to be dismissed, arguing Adams knew the risks of playing and and voluntarily participated in the football program. The case is pending.
Last year, a Los Angeles jury rejected a claim from the widow of a former University of Southern California football player who said the NCAA failed to protect him from repeated head trauma that led to his death, according to news reports.
Matthew Gee, a linebacker on the 1990 Rose Bowl-winning squad, endured an estimated 6,000 hits that caused permanent brain damage and led to cocaine and alcohol abuse that eventually killed him at age 49, lawyers for his widow alleged.
The NCAA said Gee’s death was a sudden cardiac arrest brought on by untreated hypertension and acute cocaine toxicity.
2023-12-01 18:56:15
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