## Facts

- More than 20,000 retired professional football players (and representatives) sued the National Football League and related entities, alleging the league failed to warn about risks from concussive and subconcussive head impacts and misrepresented or concealed those risks.
- Plaintiffs alleged repeated head trauma increased the risk of serious neurocognitive conditions, including dementia-related disorders and other neurological diseases.
- Claims included negligence-based theories, misrepresentation and concealment, wrongful death, and related tort theories.
- The actions were consolidated in a federal multidistrict litigation proceeding in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
- After negotiations and mediation, the parties reached a class settlement that (as revised) provided:
  - An uncapped monetary program paying awards for qualifying diagnoses (including specified neurodegenerative diseases and levels of dementia), using grids based on diagnosis and other criteria.
  - A baseline neurological assessment program for eligible retired players.
  - Education-related benefits concerning head-injury risks.
- The district court declined to approve an earlier capped-fund proposal due to concerns that a cap could prove inadequate, and it later approved the revised, uncapped settlement.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court properly certified a settlement class under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) and 23(b)(3) despite varying injuries, causation, and damages.
2. Whether Rule 23(a)(4) adequacy was satisfied given asserted conflicts among currently injured players, presently unimpaired players, and those with potential future CTE-related harm, without creating subclasses.
3. Whether the settlement was fair, reasonable, and adequate under Rule 23(e), including under the Third Circuit’s Girsh/Prudential factors.
4. Whether the settlement’s limited treatment of CTE and future injuries rendered the release and compensation structure unfair.

## Decision

- The Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s certification of the Rule 23(b)(3) settlement class and final approval of the revised settlement.
- The court held that common issues concerning the NFL’s knowledge and alleged failure to disclose head-injury risks supported predominance in the settlement posture.
- The court rejected the argument that intra-class differences required subclasses, finding no fundamental conflict that made representation inadequate.
- The court upheld the district court’s Rule 23(e) fairness determination, emphasizing litigation risks, the complexity of medical causation, and the immediate benefits provided by the settlement.
- The uncapped nature of the revised settlement supported adequacy by reducing the risk that early claimants would exhaust available funds.

## Legal Principles

- A settlement class must satisfy Rule 23(a) and Rule 23(b)(3) through a rigorous analysis, even when certification is sought for settlement rather than trial.
- In assessing Rule 23(b)(3) predominance for a settlement class, trial manageability concerns carry reduced weight because the case will not be tried.
- Adequacy under Rule 23(a)(4) is not defeated by ordinary allocation tradeoffs among class members; a structural conflict requiring subclasses generally requires a showing that one subgroup’s interests were sacrificed for another’s benefit.
- Under Rule 23(e), courts evaluate whether a proposed settlement is fair, reasonable, and adequate by weighing factors including litigation complexity and duration, class reaction, the stage of proceedings, and risks of proving liability and damages.
- Scientific uncertainty and evolving medical knowledge may be considered in evaluating whether settlement terms reasonably focus compensation on clinically diagnosable conditions rather than speculative or developing injury categories.

## Conclusion

The Third Circuit upheld certification and approval of an uncapped settlement resolving widespread concussion-related claims by retired professional football players, concluding the class was properly certified, representation was adequate despite differing injury profiles, and the settlement’s structure and benefits were fair under Rule 23(e) given the substantial risks and complexity of continued litigation.


In re Nat’l Football League Players Concussion Injury Litig., 821 F.3d 410 (3d Cir. 2016)