ANNAPOLIS, Md. (Legal Newsline) - A former Rutgers University football player who went on to a career in the NFL can sue the NCAA in Maryland for brain injuries he says he suffered in college, an appeals court ruled, rejecting the NCAA’s argument it didn’t do anything to cause the plaintiff’s injuries in Maryland.
Brandon Haw was born and raised in Prince George’s County, Md., and played at Rutgers and later for the Seattle Seahawks and NFL affiliates in Europe before returning home to live in Baltimore. He sued the NCAA in 2021, claiming he developed chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) from repeated concussions he suffered during college.
Haw argued the NCAA was responsible for his injuries because officials hid the risk of CTE from student-athletes and falsely claimed they would be protected by helmets.
A trial court dismissed Haw’s case in 2022 for lack of jurisdiction over the NCAA, which has its headquarters in Indianapolis. The judge ruled that the NCAA’s rulemaking activities occurred out-of-state and the unincorporated association couldn’t be linked to activities of its member schools to establish jurisdiction.
The Maryland Appellate Court partially reversed in a Feb. 1 decision written by Judge Kevin Arthur.
While the NCAA lacks the level of contacts with Maryland to allow for general jurisdiction, the appeals court ruled, a state court can exercise personal jurisdiction because Haw is a Maryland resident and he played at least one NCAA-sanctioned game in the state, a 2000 contest against the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2020 ruled that a man could sue Ford Motor in Minnesota over an accident in that state involving a Crown Victoria that had been manufactured in Canada and first sold in North Dakota.
“In the present case, Mr. Haw is a Maryland resident who claims to have suffered part of his injury in Maryland,” the appeals court said. “Thus, like the plaintiffs in Ford Motor, he has identified an adequate link between his claims and the forum state.”
The NCAA argued that if Haw was allowed to sue in Maryland, it would be subject to similar lawsuits all 50 states. The appeals court said if the NCAA could only be sued in its headquarters state, however, that would lead to “unreasonable results,” since when Haw was playing at Rutgers the NCAA was based in Missouri.
In 2022, the Indiana Supreme Court considered whether NCAA executives could be forced to testify in a similar lawsuit by a former player for the University of Toledo. In 2019, the NCAA settled a class action over head trauma by funding a $70 million medical-monitoring program, but it still faces hundreds of lawsuits by individual plaintiffs.
College football was once a more dangerous and even deadly game. The NCAA was formed at the turn of the last century after President Theodore Roosevelt invited college football leaders to the White House to “for a discussion on reforming or abolishing the game during a season that produced 18 deaths and 149 serious injuries attributed to the sport,” the appeals court observed.
The colleges formed an association which took the name National Collegiate Athletic Association in 1910.