LONDON – Lawyers representing hundreds of former rugby players who allege they suffered brain injuries during their careers have lost a bid to challenge orders that could lead to their High Court claims being thrown out.<\/p>\n
A mix of professional and amateur players claim that World Rugby, the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), England\u2019s Rugby Football Union (RFU), the Rugby Football League and the British Amateur Rugby League Association breached a duty of care to protect them from injury.<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the players say they have suffered a range of neurological conditions such as early onset dementia, Parkinson\u2019s, epilepsy and motor neurone disease because of repeated blows.<\/p>\n
They argue that the governing bodies had the knowledge and resources to understand the likelihood of brain damage, but did not take steps against this or inform the players.<\/p>\n
Each of the governing bodies denies wrongdoing and is defending the legal claims.<\/p>\n
At a hearing in November, lawyers representing players brought appeals over case management court orders, including over the provision of medical records.<\/p>\n
These orders, if not followed, could lead to the cases being thrown out.<\/p>\n
In written submissions for the hearing in November, Susan Rodway, acting for the players, challenged the orders, describing one as \u201cdisproportionate and oppressive, irrational and perverse\u201d.<\/p>\n
But in a judgement on Dec 22, Justice Dexter Dias dismissed the appeals.<\/p>\n
He said in his 71-page ruling that it was \u201cwell within the generous margin of his discretion\u201d for a previous judge to make the orders, adding: \u201cI cannot accept that the judge\u2019s decision was unreasonable or perverse, or suffered from any of the further condemnatory adjectives the claimants have deployed at various points.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge later said: \u201cThere was a serious erosion of the confidence the court could safely place in the way the disclosure process had been conducted.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rodway previously said that obtaining all the medical records for the hundreds of players is \u201cakin to the folklore \u2018wicked stepmothers\u2019 who compel the princess to mow vast meadows using only nail scissors\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, in the Dec 22 ruling, Justice Dexter Dias said this \u201cboth misunderstands and exaggerates the task\u201d.<\/p>\n
He continued: \u201cWhere medical evidence is unavailable or no longer in existence, the affidavit can simply explain that.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf an extension of time is required in respect of the medical records of an individual claimant due to difficulties beyond the claimants\u2019 control, that can be justified and applied for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Law firm Rylands Garth, representing the ex-players, said in a statement to AFP that it was grateful to the judge for providing \u201cgreater clarity regarding the required level of disclosure of claimants\u2019 medical records\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo date, we have already disclosed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents in support of the case against World Rugby, the RFU and WRU, as well as the rugby league defendants,\u201d it said in a statement. <\/p>\n
\u201cMany of these documents were disclosed several years ago. The defendants have never formally responded to the claims and continue to attempt to hold up the case\u2019s progress through the court.\u201d AFP <\/p>\n
RugbyWounds and injuriesWorkplace safety and health<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON – Lawyers representing hundreds of former rugby players who allege they suffered brain injuries during their careers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365069,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,760,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-365068","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-rugby","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365068","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=365068"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365068\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}