$1.2 Million Settlement for Frostburg Football Player's Death After Practice Head Injury
Won by Humphrey, Farrington & McClain.
The parents of Derek Sheely, a Frostburg State football player who died in 2011 after a practice head injury, sued the NCAA, school staff and the helmet maker and retailer. After the court denied the NCAA's motion for summary judgment and a trial was set, the case settled in August 2016 for $1.2 million, paid to the Derek Sheely Foundation. No defendant admitted liability.
What happened
Derek Sheely, a 22-year-old senior fullback at Frostburg State University, a Division III school in western Maryland, died in August 2011 after a head injury during preseason football practice. His parents, Ken and Kristen Sheely of Germantown, sued in 2013 in the Circuit Court for Montgomery County. They alleged second-impact syndrome, a brain injury that occurs when a player is hit again before an earlier concussion has healed.
The complaint described a player who had a concussion the previous season and who, over several days of drills in 2011, bled persistently from the forehead. According to the family, the assistant trainer never performed a concussion examination and cleared him to keep practicing. On the day he was hurt, he complained of a headache and was told to get back out there by then-assistant coach Jamie Schumacher. Sheely collapsed at practice and died.
The defendants were the NCAA, three Frostburg State athletic staff members, and the companies that made and sold the helmet he wore: Kranos Corp. of Illinois and George L. Heider Inc. of Pennsylvania. The NCAA argued it had no legal duty to protect individual athletes. In April 2016, Judge David Boynton denied its motion for summary judgment. He found that the NCAA's stated mission of protecting athletes created a special relationship with them, and that second-impact syndrome is not an obvious risk of football, so a duty to warn could exist. A month-long jury trial was set for June.
The NCAA also pleaded contributory negligence, a defense that in Maryland bars any recovery if the injured person is found even partly at fault. Kenneth McClain represented the parents.
The case settled in August 2016 for $1.2 million, paid to the Derek Sheely Foundation, which the family created to fund research on risks to student-athletes and a scholarship in his name. The State of Maryland approved $50,000 on behalf of the school staff members. The NCAA did not disclose its share or how the rest was divided, though Kristen Sheely said she understood the NCAA contributed $1.15 million. No defendant admitted liability.
The agreement went beyond money. The NCAA and Frostburg State committed to fund a research grant on catastrophic risk by 2018 and to hold a symposium on head injuries with the foundation. Frostburg State agreed to retire Sheely's jersey, hold an annual fundraiser for the foundation and fund a full-tuition scholarship in his name for at least ten years. Reporters described it as the first time the NCAA paid in an individual brain-injury case. McClain called it a landmark settlement that put the stakeholders of football on notice of their obligation to protect athletes' health and safety.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.CBS Sports, 'NCAA and other co-defendants reach $1.2 million settlement in football player's death', Aug. 8, 2016·Archived copy
- 2.Associated Press via Delmarva Public Media, 'Settlement in Death of Frostburg University Football Player', Aug. 9, 2016·Archived copy
- 3.Associated Press via WMAR, 'NCAA settles for $1.2 million in wrongful death suit involving Frostburg football player', Aug. 2016·Archived copy
- 4.The Daily Record (Maryland), 'NCAA in $1.2M settlement of Frostburg football wrongful death suit', Aug. 8, 2016·Archived copy
- 5.ESPN (AP), 'Lawyers announce $1.2M settlement of lawsuit filed by Derek Sheely's parents', Aug. 2016·Archived copy
- 6.Baltimore Sun, 'NCAA, state reach settlement in case of Frostburg football player who died after head injury', July 27, 2016·Archived copy
- 7.CBS Sports, 'Judge rules NCAA must go to trial in death of football player', April 2016·Archived copy
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