Five law firms representing 98 NFL players have been accused of scheming to defraud the NFL's concussion settlement fund of more than $87 million, according to an audit by Special Masters David A. Hoffman and Jo-Ann M. Verrier.
The audit accuses the firms of working with a handful of doctors to furnish improper Parkinson's disease diagnoses for players vying for compensation from the fund. Those players were then prescribed powerful, symptom-stemming medications before they were evaluated by physicians approved by fund administrators.
The fund-affiliated doctors were inclined to trust those outside diagnoses in the absence of symptoms, Hoffman and Verrier -- judicial officers assigned to resolve disputes involving the settlement -- wrote in their 51-page filing made public Monday.
The decision does not say any player diagnosed with Parkinson's does not suffer from the progressive disease, and it addresses only the process through which attorneys pressed their cases. The lawyers and firms accused -- Douglas Grossinger, Feder Law LLC; Pro Athlete Law Firm PA, Syme Law PLLC and Reppert Oates & Vytell LLC -- declined or did not respond to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the NFL, which has paid out more than $1.5 billion to former players from the uncapped settlement fund, said the league was "pleased" with the special masters' decision, which called for the denial of pending claims from former players represented by the lawyers or evaluated by the eight doctors listed in the report.
The special masters also called for a remaking of the process for diagnosing Parkinson's, a neurological disorder for which there is no cure.
"The remedies that the Special Masters imposed are provided for by the Settlement Agreement and were necessary given the scope of misconduct uncovered by the Claims Administrator's investigation," NFL spokesperson Brian McCarthy said. "We are hopeful that this decision will deter future misconduct."
The fund, the result of the NFL settling a lawsuit brought by former players alleging the league did not act on improving scientific understanding of the dangers of concussions, has been the subject of numerous complaints from retired players and their advocates, who cite a grinding review process and a narrow path to compensation.
In 2021, following a lawsuit filed by two former players, the NFL pledged to end the practice of "race-norming" cognitive tests for dementia, which made it more difficult for Black players to demonstrate cognitive decline.
The special masters this week wrote that former players arrived at appointments with fund-approved doctors having been prescribed drugs including Levodopa. The physicians, they wrote, "faced with a patient who looks well but arrives with outside records describing prior complaints and an active prescription that has apparently masked them, defers to the paperwork."
The decision is not a criminal complaint or the result of a law-enforcement investigation, though the special masters noted that they have the power to refer their findings to federal authorities.
Hoffman, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has weighed in on accusations of defrauding the fund in the past. In 2021, he found that a Florida law firm influenced doctors and forged medical records on behalf of players.
