Two mothers are suing Pop Warner over their sons’ deaths which they believe were caused by brain injuries sustained while playing football.
Paul Bright Jr., from California, died in a motorcycle crash in 2014 at 24 years old.
His mother Kimberly Archie blames Pop Warner – the country’s biggest youth football league – after an autopsy revealed he suffered from CTE.
Paul Bright Jr., from California, died in a motorcycle crash in 2014 at 24 years old. His mother Kimberly Archie (pictured together) blames Pop Warner
She believes repeated head injuries he sustained on the football field made him ‘erratic and reckless’ and caused his death because ‘he had brain damage and he couldn’t think straight.’
Mrs Archie, who is campaigning for greater safety precautions in youth sport, today told MailOnline: ‘I’m suing to make a difference, to stop the football industry from continuing to lie to parents and the public that youth tackle football is reasonably safe for children before high school.
‘They knew since the 1960s at least that this is not the case. They knew the helmets have never been made for children, but they lied to us and and took our money while our kids were exposed to high risk of brain damage and disease.’
She previously told the Richmond Times-Dispatch: ‘We were told that the hits were benign. Well now I know from my dead son and having to slice his brain up after he’s dead at only 24, that was a lie.
‘Those little hits that I was told weren’t hurting him, he was taking brain damage on every hit.’
Bright played for the Sparks Steelers, a Pop Warner team, for eight years. He quit football after his freshman year at Bishop Manogue Catholic High School in Reno, Nevada – and never once was diagnosed with concussion.
The other woman bringing the suit, which seeks class-action status, is Jo Cornell, also from California.
Paul Bright Jr. (pictured on the football field), from California, died in a motorcycle crash in 2014 at 24 years old
Paul’s mother blames Pop Warner – the country’s biggest youth football league – after an autopsy revealed he suffered from CTE
She claims her son Tyler committed suicide in 2014 partly because he suffered from CTE after playing in Pop Warner from 1997 to 2002.
In a federal court in California on Monday, Judge Philip Gutierrez rejected a bid from Pop Warner to quash the suit.
He said Pop Warner ‘misrepresented that safety was its top priority.’
The league will now face parents’ negligence and fraud claims on the grounds the nonprofit football group misrepresented its safety protocols.
The judge wrote in his 25-page decision: ‘The court concludes it is plausible that as alleged, plaintiffs’ repeated head injuries sustained playing youth tackle football resulted in brain injury and CTE, and are thus traceable to acts of omission by Pop Warner.’
Kim Archie is campaigning for greater safety in youth sport
The suit seeks unspecified damages. Pop Warner last year settled its first CTE-related lawsuit for less than $2 million.
It comes after the NFL settled cases with more than 20,000 former players suffering CTE in 2015.
A Boston University study about youth football was published in Nature’s Translational Psychiatry, a noted medical journal.
It found that football players who participated in youth football before 12 years of age were twice as likely to fall victim to ‘problems with behavioral regulation, apathy and executive function.’
They were also three times more likely to suffer from ‘clinically elevated depression.’
‘The brain is going through this incredible time of growth between the years of 10 and 12, and if you subject that developing brain to repetitive head impacts, it may cause problems later in life,’ Robert Stern, one of the authors of the study, said.
The findings are consistent with other studies conducted of retired NFL players.
Those who started playing after the age of 12 were less likely to exhibit diminished cognitive abilities.
There is a growing number of scientists who believe that playing tackle football is not advised for young children, particularly between the ages of 10 and 12, since those are critical years in the brain’s development.