its not stupid its a fact
if all the players sued the AFL their would be no game
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Someoneâs not operating at full capacity here.
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Possibly correct, tho.
If the V/AFL have followed (at that time) worldâs best practice, is anyone necessarily liable?
If he can show a particular doctor/coach/club sent him back out contrary to the best available medical advice, then sure, heâs got a case.
But - if anything - itâs more likely to be the other way around, club/doc tells the player âyou probably should have a week offâ and the player says ânah, stuff that, Iâm rightâ.
Head knocks are an inescapable part of the game.
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I doubt that would negate liability. It was a different time when players were expected to play on. Sure we didnât know what we know now but that is the same in lots of legal cases. I think the difference between the NFL and AFL is at the moment the AFL need more cases to correlate results. They have that in the NFL. Back then a lot of the players money was given in bonuses for games played I.e 10 games in the season and then 20 etc kind of counter productive to good injury management.
Difference between putting your body on the line and becoming a mental vegetable.
I think it does, as an employer youâre expected to take all reasonable steps.
I doubt you can be held liable for something that nobody knew about.
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As an employer an employee can fall over walking too his Ute in a completely flat car park and his employer is liable.
an employee can think about getting hurt walking to his car in a flat car park and claim mental anguish as workers comp
Yes, but thatâs obvious when and where it happened. The science of falling over and carparks is pretty well settled.
Weâre talking about stuff that happened 20 and 30 years ago where the science is only emerging now.
Itâs far from clearcut. Hence why his âready to goâ courtcase hasnât been launched yet, 7 months later.
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There is no such excuse âas I didnât know about itâ.
Employers have a strict duty of care no matter what. It might mitigate a payout amount but there is still a liability.
Well ultimately I think the AFL will do what the NFL did. Admit liability and settle without admitting that concussion causes harm to players. In the NFL case the argument was itâs really been known for 30 years take boxing for example. I would imagine the AFL will wait and let the case come to them. But you can bet your bottom dollar the AFL would be working with there insurers on potential liability.
So what happens if we find out that (hypothetical) tap water in an industrial area or an office block is contaminated - every company with affected employees get sued?
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There are many ways, and some very interesting monitoring and testing coming down the research pipeline. The AFL are waaaaay behind on this one.
Yep, that is the way it would work; and then the Company insurers would counter sue the owners of the buildings who would in turn counter sue the water suppliers. Lawyers love this stuff.
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CTE discovered in Polly Farmerâs brain in AFL-first
By Wendy Carlisle and Anthony Colangelo
February 26, 2020 â 11.53pm
CTE has been discovered in the brain of the late legendary Australian Rules football player Graham âPollyâ Farmer, the first time the neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated concussions has been detected in a player from the code.
The discovery is revealed in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, in which Farmer is not identified. However, The West Australian newspaper has reported the identity of the prominent Australian Rules footballer whose case is detailed in the journal by Associate Professor Michael Buckland from the Australian Sports Brain Bank.
Associate Professor Buckland reported the player had been diagnosed with Alzheimerâs at the age of 64 and died in his 80s.
According to the journal, the family reported anger and aggression issues, personality changes, depression and a deteriorating memory that accelerated in the final five years of life.
Because CTE (and for that matter, Alzheimerâs disease) can only be diagnosed by brain examination after death, its extent is unknown in Australian contact sports.
Nor is there any evidence as to what risk individual players who have been exposed to head injury, might have of developing CTE.
The Australian Sports Brain Bank discovered the evidence of the disease in Farmerâs brain after he died on August 14 last year at the age of 84. Farmer is considered one of the greatest players to have played the game.
CTE â or chronic traumatic encephalopathy â is a neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated blows to the head.
The discovery is a significant moment in how the AFL, and the game of Australian Rules football, continues to grapple with the issue of brain trauma to current and former players.
In a strongly worded conclusion to the paper, Buckland and his co-authors describe CTE as an âoccupational health issueâ for those playing collision sports.
âThat (CTE) exists at all should serve as a call to action to recognise and research CTE and the very clear association with a repetitive head injury.
âClaims of a lack of demonstrated âcausalityâ are unhelpful, and arguably irrelevant when assessing a public and occupational health issue as CTE.â
The AFL recently announced it would be tightening up its return-to-play guidelines following a concussion. This season AFL players must pass concussion protocols five days before their next game, or be ruled out.
âThe changes to the concussion guidelines for the 2020 AFL and AFLW seasons reflect our ongoing conservative approach in managing concussions at the elite level,â AFL number two and chief legal counsel Andrew Dillon recently told The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald .
âThe health and safety of all players is paramount and in recent years we have strengthened match-day protocols, changed the laws of the game to further discourage high contact, improved the identification of potential concussive incidents through video, and we continue to invest in research to better understand concussion at all levels of the game.â
Farmer was an inspiration for generations of Indigenous footballers.
Brain trauma can cause symptoms like memory loss, depression, dementia, confusion, emotional instability, anxiety and aggression.
These problems sometimes only arise years after the head trauma has stopped.
Farmer played 356 games of league football from 1952 to 1971 as a ruckman for East Perth and West Perth in the WAFL and for Geelong in the VFL in-between.
He is considered a revolutionary figure in the game because of how he played the ruck position and his use of the handball.
A landmark Journal of the American Medical Association study in 2017 revealed that from 111 National Football League deceased playersâ brains, 110 of them had CTE.
The NFL has paid out more than $US500 million ($A760 million) across 2000 claims lodged by former players. The payout figure could reach $US1 billion, it is projected.
In mid-2019, CTE was found in the brains of two former Australian National Rugby League players, the first time this had happened.
Several former Australian Rules players are threatening to sue the league because of cognitive problems that they believe stem from on-field concussion.
They include Shaun Smith, John Barnes and John Platten.
Recently players such as Liam Picken, Matt Maguire and Koby Stevens have retired from the game due to the ongoing effects of concussion. St Kildaâs number one draft pick Paddy McCartin has not played since round 16, 2018 because of repeated concussions.
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⌠and another one too.
This could become a massive issue for the sport.
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Just a little bit of an ear massage there on the way through bristle.
Sorry, you do it so much better.
Yes, the league has an issue.
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Whatâs the issue exactly?
There is an inherent risk that all players know they are taking by playing footy. The trade off is the opportunity to get very well remunerated, the lifestyle, access to opportunities post career through networking etc.
Players know whilst they are availing themselves of these benefits they also know in the back of their mind that there is a chance (albeit still a reasonably small chance) that they could suffer brain trauma, or even sever their spinal cord and become a quadriplegic.
These guys - Polly Farmer, Danny Frawley, and later on, probably guys like John Platten, Diesel Williams did play in an era where you could get away with a lot more king hits behind play, swinging arms at the bottom of packs or after a mark.
The AFL have done a lot since then to âsoftenâ the game already and they have by and large removed the âthugâ from the arena.
Perhaps, the area where today players are most vulnerable to suffer head trauma is in tackling, as there is a lot more tackling than there ever used to be.
The deterrent for sling tackling was tightened even further this season in response to that.
And also, the in-game concussion testing is far more regular and caution is almost always applied which sees the players sit out the match and then have to follow protocol before being selected again in further weeks.
What more should the league be doing?? What can they do beyond what they already have done that doesnât render the game a virtually unrecognisable, contact free sport??
Litigation
I think the game will get to a point where helmets are mandatory. People can fight it all they want but it will become mandatory eventually.
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At what point does the league begin to be responsible and at what point do they cease to be responsible?
Are they culpable up until an arbitrary year where itâs accepted that they began to demonstrate that they put in place greater player education, more severe tribunal penalties for incidents involving the head?
It is still at the end of the day a contact sport and you canât control everything. Itâs still possible today that a player may acquire these long term brain injuries despite all theyâve done. Is it the leagueâs fault still?
Regarding helmets, is there sufficient evidence to indicate that they even help?