Ex-CFL players face April 30 deadline to join brain-injury arbitration

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Former Canadian Football League players have only a few more weeks to submit grievances seeking compensation for concussion-related injuries prior to Oct. 31, 2023.

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The shift to arbitration follows the withdrawal of a 2015 class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of CFL players from 1952 to 2014 as well as a legal process capped by a March 2018 Supreme Court of Canada decision not to hear an appeal of rulings against a concussion-related lawsuit by former receiver Arland Bruce.

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Those rulings upheld precedents that union-represented workers, as Bruce was under the collective agreement between the league and the CFL Players’ Association, must take injury-related claims to arbitration except in extraordinary circumstances.

Separate from Bruce’s case and the class-action lawsuit, the CFLPA filed a group grievance in 2018 that is also now shifting to arbitration.

Negotiations have led to an agreement directing these matters to arbitration. An Oct. 31 news release said the class-action lawsuit against the CFL, its teams and former commissioner Mark Cohon had been discontinued.

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No related grievances can be submitted after April 30.

“Everyone agrees that, if you think you’ve been hurt, you have until April 30 to put your name down on a list,” said Vancouver lawyer Robyn Wishart, who represented Bruce and was also involved in the class-action lawsuit.

“You don’t need to prove your injury, you don’t have to present your medicals. All you need to do to put your name on the list is to phone and put your name on the list. All of the details under which that process will occur will be determined (later),” Wishart said.

A CFL spokesperson said the outcome of the class-action lawsuit “resulted from hundreds of hours of discussions with legal counsel for both sides. During that time, a myriad of options was exhaustively explored and, in the end, it was decided that this was the best solution moving forward.

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“We have a great deal of confidence in our grievance and arbitration system — we have seen it work before, it has been proven to be effective over time.”

The CFL Players’ Association is part of a coalition lobbying provincial governments for professional athlete coverage included in workers’ compensation programs. They aren’t covered in Canada, though they are in some U.S. states.

Even if that changed, however, it would only apply to players with current CFL contracts. For those no longer in the league, a grievance is the only potential path to compensation.

Wishart says players she represents will seek benefits for future care and wage loss.

“There are players who are in need of basic medical care and, for some, disability benefits in terms players who cannot work to varying degrees,” she said.

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The number of participants in the CFLPA’s group grievance wasn’t disclosed, but Wishart previously said more than 200 former players or families had joined the class-action lawsuit, including Korey Banks, who played for the short-lived Ottawa Renegades, and relatives of former Ottawa Rough Riders’ Gary Schreiner, Rod Woodward and Dennis Duncan.

“We’re all collecting names,” she said. “They haven’t all been put together, but the list grows daily. And so we’re up from where we were before and, from the April 30 date, we’ll be setting a date for how the arbitration is going to move forward.”

Last fall’s news release noted there was no guarantee of success for any party in a legal proceeding, including arbitration. It added that former players looking to file grievances could hire their own lawyers or contact the CFLPA.

“Step 1 is put your name on the list,” Wishart said. “Step 2 is going to be let’s figure out the mechanism for which each of these cases will be heard. Then Step 3 will be proving the repetitive brain trauma allegations. Finally, then, will be compensation.

“What that looks like is a little too far ahead for me to be able to make any comment on it.”

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