A Texas jury recently entered a massive verdict against the NCAA arising from an SMU college football player from the 1950s. The NCAA has issued a statement regarding the outcome in the case brought by the family of J.T. Davis, who died of Alzheimer’s disease with severe CTE.
“The NCAA expresses its deepest sympathies to the Davis family, but we respectfully disagree with the jury’s verdict,” the NCAA said. “The evidence that was presented was largely based on the knowledge and science as it exists today, rather than what was known by the parties in the 1950s when Mr. Davis played college football.
“The NCAA continues to actively enhance player safety in college athletics in its role as an athletic association. While the NCAA is not a medical body, it is at the forefront of funding the largest, independent study on the natural history of concussions in sports such as football. The NCAA will continue to aggressively defend against cases like this one. We will pursue all legal options in this case, including an appeal.”
The jury, which obviously disagreed with the NCAA’s position, entered a verdict in the amount of $30 million for compensatory damages and another $110 million in punitive damages.
Texas limits punitive damages to $750,000. That’s one of the byproducts of having right-leaning, pro-business government control a given state. Some cases justify more than $750,000 in punitive damages. Especially when the defendant is enormously wealthy.
The goal of punitive damages is to punish a party that may have knowingly violated a person’s rights, and to deter others from doing the same thing. For plenty of entities with significant resources, a worst-case scenario of punitive damages in the amount of $750,000 provides neither punishment nor deterrence.
For some, it’s nothing more than a cost of doing business.
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