A High Court judge dismisses an appeal by ex-players over case orders, warning their brain injury claims could be thrown out for disclosure failures<\/p>\n
LAWYERS for hundreds of former rugby players have lost a High Court appeal against case management orders in a major brain injury lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The players, both professional and amateur, allege governing bodies failed to protect them from neurological conditions caused by repeated head impacts.<\/p>\n
They claim World Rugby, the Welsh Rugby Union, the Rugby Football Union, the Rugby Football League and the British Amateur Rugby League Association breached their duty of care.<\/p>\n
The claimants say they suffer from early onset dementia, Parkinson\u2019s disease, epilepsy and motor neurone disease as a result.<\/p>\n
Each of the defending rugby bodies denies any wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
At a hearing last month, the players\u2019 legal team appealed against orders related to providing comprehensive medical records.<\/p>\n
Non-compliance with these orders could lead to the entire group litigation being struck out.<\/p>\n
In a written judgement on Monday, Justice Dexter Dias dismissed the claimants\u2019 appeals.<\/p>\n
He ruled that the original case management orders were \u201cwell within the generous margin of his discretion\u201d.<\/p>\n
Justice Dias stated he could not accept the decision was \u201cunreasonable or perverse\u201d, as argued by the claimants\u2019 lawyer Susan Rodway.<\/p>\n
The judge expressed concern over \u201ca serious erosion of the confidence the court could safely place\u201d in how disclosure had been handled.<\/p>\n
Rodway had previously likened obtaining all medical records to a fairy tale task of \u201cmowing vast meadows using only nail scissors\u201d.<\/p>\n
Justice Dias said this comparison \u201cboth misunderstands and exaggerates the task\u201d required by the court.<\/p>\n
He clarified that claimants could explain if records were unavailable or apply for extensions if facing genuine difficulties.<\/p>\n
Law firm Rylands Garth, representing the ex-players, said it was grateful for the \u201cgreater clarity\u201d provided by the ruling.<\/p>\n
The firm noted it had already disclosed \u201chundreds of thousands of pages of documents\u201d to support the case.<\/p>\n
It accused the defendants of never formally responding to the claims and attempting to hold up the court process.<\/p>\n
In a joint statement, World Rugby, the RFU and the WRU said they noted the dismissal of the appeal.<\/p>\n
The bodies highlighted the judge\u2019s concern over the disclosure process and said effective disclosure was \u201cindispensable\u201d.<\/p>\n
They stated that many players now risk having their claims struck out due to these disclosure failures.<\/p>\n
The governing bodies reiterated that player welfare remains a \u201ccentral priority\u201d and they \u201cshall not stand still in this space\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A High Court judge dismisses an appeal by ex-players over case orders, warning their brain injury claims could…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365884,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,63,198680,198681,198682,198683,760,198684,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-365883","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-former-rugby-players-claim","11":"tag-high-court-appeal-dismissed","12":"tag-medical-records-disclosure","13":"tag-neurological-conditions-rugby","14":"tag-rugby","15":"tag-rugby-brain-injury-lawsuit","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365883","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=365883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}