NFL Concussion MDL: Anapol Weiss Serves as Co-Lead Class Counsel in ~$1 Billion Settlement for Retired Players

In 2011, former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Jim McMahon and six other retired NFL players filed suit in federal court, setting off litigation that would grow into one of the largest sports-injury class actions in history. The complaint alleged that the NFL had long concealed what it knew about the link between repeated head trauma and lasting neurological damage, leaving generations of retired players to cope with conditions like chronic traumatic encephalopathy, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and ALS without adequate warning or support.

The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation consolidated the growing docket in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in January 2012, assigning the case to Judge Anita B. Brody. Sol Weiss and Larry Coben of the Philadelphia firm then known as Anapol Schwartz (later Anapol Weiss) were appointed co-lead class counsel, coordinating litigation strategy for a plaintiff class that eventually numbered in the thousands of retired players and their families. The firm personally represented roughly 350 NFL players throughout the case.

The central legal challenge was proving that the NFL had known, for decades, that the game's routine collisions carried a serious long-term risk of brain disease, and that the league had suppressed or minimized that knowledge while continuing to market the sport. Counsel also had to structure a settlement that could account for a wide range of diagnoses, degrees of cognitive impairment, and the tragic reality that CTE could only be confirmed posthumously at the time of the settlement.

Judge Brody granted final approval to the settlement on April 22, 2015. The agreement was uncapped, meaning the NFL agreed to pay valid claims as they arose rather than capping total exposure. Individual awards were calibrated by diagnosis: the maximum award of up to $5 million went to players diagnosed with ALS, with awards of up to $3.5 million for Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease and lower amounts for varying degrees of dementia. Actuarial projections placed the total expected value of the settlement at approximately $1 billion over its 65-year term.

The settlement drew a small number of opt-outs, primarily from players and families who argued that the agreement did not cover CTE in living players or adequately address conditions arising from sub-concussive hits accumulated over a career. Those disputes were addressed in subsequent appellate proceedings. The Third Circuit affirmed the settlement approval in 2016, and a later fee-allocation appeal in 2019 again confirmed the class structure and Sol Weiss's role as Co-Lead Class Counsel. Anapol Weiss received $4,643,590 from the court-approved common benefit fund of $112.5 million in attorneys' fees and costs.