{"id":341357,"date":"2025-12-11T09:10:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T09:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341357\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T09:10:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T09:10:12","slug":"lawyers-warning-to-nrl-over-katoa-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/341357\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawyer\u2019s warning to NRL over Katoa injury"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leading compensation lawyer Peter Carter has warned any rugby league body involved in the heartbreaking Eliesa Katoa incident could be liable for the injuries sustained by the star forward.<\/p>\n

Katoa has been ruled out by the Storm for the 2026 season after he suffered repeated head knocks before and during a game for Tonga against New Zealand in November.<\/p>\n

The Dally M Second Rower of the Year required surgery to ease pressure on his brain and spent two weeks in an Auckland hospital before he was cleared to return to Melbourne where he has continued to work with specialists.<\/p>\n

\"Eli<\/p>\n

Eli Katoa spent weeks in hospital following three head knocks in the space of 90 minutes.<\/p>\n

The fact he was allowed to play in that match after copping a nasty blow to the head from teammate Lehi Hopoate before the match raised alarm bells, although the Tongan team were adamant they didn\u2019t see the footage that went to air.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiability falls first on the Tongan (team) and its national league organisation,\u201d said Carter, who is representing former Manly prop Lloyd Perrett in separate legal proceedings against the club for an allegedly \u201coutlandish training regime\u201d that ended his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe NRL, could also be potentially liable since employers have a duty to take reasonable care to avoid foreseeable risks of injury to their employees.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carter claims that there \u201cmay be liability (on) the part of any association that played a role in the championship\u2019s oversight, funding or promotion\u201d.<\/p>\n

That would include the NRL, with Carter questioning why they didn\u2019t appoint a medical officer for the Pacific Championships which were promoted and in part organised by the game\u2019s governing body.<\/p>\n

The NRL handed down its findings on Monday, proposing Tonga\u2019s head doctor, assistant doctor and head trainer be suspended from rugby league activities for the next 24 months.<\/p>\n

\"Kiwis<\/p>\n

The NRL has handed down proposed bans for several people involved. Picture: Hannah Peters\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Katoa has indicated in recent weeks that he holds no ill will to those involved, but Carter has made it clear that there is an avenue for him to pursue legal action.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sporting field is a professional footballer\u2019s workplace and the employer\u2019s duty of care extends to this realm,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLiability also depends on evidence supporting the contention that being allowed to play after the head knock was medically considered to have worsened Katoa\u2019s condition.<\/p>\n

\u201cRugby league is an intensely physical sport but player safety always has to come first.<\/p>\n

\u201cNRL and other sports administrators need to heed the lessons of this case and ensure they never compromise on player safety.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leading compensation lawyer Peter Carter has warned any rugby league body involved in the heartbreaking Eliesa Katoa incident…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[568],"tags":[64,63,80681,152341,55228,152166,761,762,158,72818,159,85,18559],"class_list":["post-341357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nrl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-eli-katoa","tag-eliesa-katoa","tag-head-knocks","tag-katoa","tag-national-rugby-league","tag-nationalrugbyleague","tag-nrl","tag-peter-carter","tag-rugby-league","tag-sports","tag-tonga"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}