{"id":286302,"date":"2025-07-23T22:18:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T22:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286302\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T22:18:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T22:18:09","slug":"judge-criticises-solicitor-acting-on-behalf-of-players-with-brain-injury-lawsuits-rugby-union","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/286302\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge criticises solicitor acting on behalf of players with brain injury lawsuits | Rugby union"},"content":{"rendered":"

The judge presiding over the two brain injury lawsuits in rugby league and union has issued an extraordinary criticism of the solicitor acting on behalf of the injured players<\/a>, saying that he had been under a \u201cmisapprehension\u201d about his responsibilities and that \u201che seems to have a problem with the English language\u201d.<\/p>\n

Senior master Jeremy Cook said that Richard Boardman, whose firm Rylands Garth is representing more than 1,000 players across both codes, had failed to disclose material to the defendants, World Rugby, the Rugby Football Union, the Welsh Rugby Union, and Rugby Football League.<\/p>\n

Cook decided to not strike out any of the claims being brought by Rylands Garth because he believes the problems can be remedied. But he upheld the defendants\u2019 complaints that there had been \u201cserious and widespread failures to comply\u201d with court orders in the ugby league case in particular.<\/p>\n

The defendants claimed there were \u201csignificant gaps\u201d in the medical records in 90% of the claims issued in these cases. At the high court in London, Cook ruled that the claimants, who are being backed by a commercial litigation funder, are liable for the costs incurred in the bringing of these complaints.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese claims mean a lot to the claimants, and the difficulties here have been caused by Mr Boardman\u2019s complete misunderstanding of his responsibilities,\u201d Cook said. Boardman, Cook continued, seemed to be under the misapprehension that \u201che only had to disclose documents relied on\u201d to the defendants, as opposed to providing them with all relevant material.<\/p>\n

This has contributed to a delay in the case, which still has yet to come to trial. \u201cThere has been no admission, and no apology,\u201d Cook said, \u201cand above and before everything else a complete failure on the part of Mr Boardman to recognise that all this was caused by his misreading.\u201d<\/p>\n

Susan Rodway KC, of Rylands Garth, argued that the defendants had sent the claimants on \u201ca four-month exercise in following leads down rabbit holes\u201d in search of \u201csome smoking gun\u201d documents which do not exist, and that the firm lacked the resources to comply with the impossible task of providing full medical records for every one of the players involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been enough delay,\u201d Cook said. \u201cThese claimants need their cases resolving and the sooner the better.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was revealed in the latest rugby case management hearing that of the 383 claimants who joined the action since the cut-off date this year, only 91 have received a medical diagnosis. Despite this, the legal teams on both sides will now select and agree on a group of lead claimants to go forward to trial, with further case management hearings scheduled for spring in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost five years after legal action began, the claimants lawyers have today conceded in court that many players in the case have not undergone thorough medical testing but instead what the judge called a \u201cself-serving tick box exercise\u201d in order to sign up to this claim,\u201d a World Rugby spokesperson said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have no substantive medical diagnosis. The conduct of Rylands Garth meant the judge issued an order which could yet see many more players having their case struck out. There must now be serious doubts over whether players\u2019 best interests are being served. This is a situation that surely benefits nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue fighting for justice for our players and their families \u2013 who continue to suffer every day with the life-altering impacts of the negligence of rugby authorities,\u201d said a Rylands Garth spokesperson in response. \u201cRugby authorities are fully aware that the testing has been extremely thorough, including brain imaging and neurological assessments. If they\u2019re suggesting otherwise, they are again letting down players who have suffered playing the sport.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The judge presiding over the two brain injury lawsuits in rugby league and union has issued an extraordinary…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":286303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-286302","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114904871949407702","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/286303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=286302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=286302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}