Honolulu resident John Wilbur has joined the thousands of former professional football players who are suing the National Football League over the brain damage they say is the result of the repeated head trauma they suffered during their NFL careers.
Philadelphia-based Locks Law Firm, which has filed similar lawsuits on behalf of other former NFL players, is representing Wilbur. A local lawyer filed the suit in U.S. District Court here Wednesday.
As in the other lawsuits, Wilbur alleged the NFL mythologizes violence through the media, markets and glorifies football violence in NFL films, and knew the dangers and risks associated with repetitive head impacts and concussions but failed in its duty to protect the players’ health.
The lawsuit said the NFL studied head impacts in football yet concealed their long-term effects. It accuses the NFL of fraud, fraudulent concealment, negligence, negligent misrepresentation and conspiracy.
Wilbur, 70, played nine seasons as an offensive lineman in the NFL from 1966 to 1974: four seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, one with the Los Angeles Rams and four with the Washington Redskins. He also played for The Hawaiians of the World Football League in 1975.
During his time in the NFL, Wilbur said in his lawsuit, he suffered multiple repetitive head impacts, sub-concussive blows to the head and concussions. He believes they are responsible for the chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive degenerative brain disease, he now suffers.
Wilbur said he started showing effects of the disease in the 1990s with a slow but developing lack of ability to maintain and operate his real estate business. Wilbur says he began to develop symptoms of depression, mood swings, anger management issues, disoriented thinking and poor judgment.
He says those symptoms and a deterioration of his short-term memory became pronounced in the past two years. Last November, Wilbur suffered a stroke.
No NFL representative could be reached for comment.
All previous lawsuits filed against the NFL in Philadelphia last year have been combined into a master complaint that is being considered by a single federal judge.
