Former football players sues NFL’s pension plan
Former Washington Redskins quarterback, Eric Shelton filed a lawsuit against the NFL’s pension plan. He is arguing that he is entitled to the highest levels of disability benefits for a spine injury that ended his NFL career.
The complaints filed in the U.S District Court Baltimore today asks that Shelton be paid $225,000 a year under the league’s disability plan instead of the $110,000 which the league’s disability board ruled that Shelton would receive. The $110,000 award came
after an appeals process this August. The league initially awarded Shelton $14,000 a year.
Shelton was picked in the second round of the 2005 draft by Carolina. His career ended in 2008 and left him with debilitating injuries. In July 2008 Shelton injured his spine at the Redskins training camp in a helmet to helmet that permanently damaged his
spinal column and left him temporarily numb from the waist down.
Even now he suffers from that years old injury. The lawsuit said that Shelton continues to have migraines, suffers from blurry vision and Parkinsonism (not Parkinsons but a similar neurological condition which causes tremors and impaired speech in the sufferer).
Shelton was briefly employed since 2008 but had to quit because of the pain.
“It is easy to put out PSAs and posters and levy fines for helmet-to-helmet hits, but the league knows it will be lot more costly to take care of the guys who suffer from those hits,” Cy Smith, Shelton’s attorney said. "The NFL has a credibility gap between
what they say and what they do.”
The league’s disability board ruled that Shelton’s employment at Walgreen’s is a clear indication that Shelton’s injuries did not result in total and permanent disability which would entitle him to the full extent of the league’s disability program. The
panel ruled that the player’s injuries were degenerative and awarded him the final $110,000 at the end of the appeals process. Douglas Ell, lawyer for the league, said that Shelton could not be placed in the highest benefit’s category, as the lawsuit requests
because players who are unable to work immediately after retiring from the NFL are placed in that category. “Mr. Shelton worked at a pharmacy until April 2009,” Ell said.
The league argues that this attempt to find work that Shelton was disabled but not unemployable. The highest disability benefits are awarded in cases when a person is ‘substantially prevented’ or ‘substantially unable’ from working and earning a living for
himself.
Smith retorted that the pension plan was ‘out of bounds’ to suggest that Shelton’s attempt, albeit unsuccessful, to earn a paycheck for himself rules him out of the NFL’s highest benefits category.
The League has recently acknowledged the devastating long-term effects of playing professional football. Recent studies have shown that even without sustaining concussions, a football player is at high risk of developing neurological problems later on. Smith
brought attention to this fact and said that the league itself realized that helmet to helmet hits, the mechanism of Shelton’s injury, are the most dangerous hits in football. “The plan’s position that this must be degenerative is in sharp contrast to how
dangerous these hits are.”
Smith argues that the injury made it painful for Shelton to walk or stand up and his brief employment at Walgreen’s showed nothing but his desire to support himself. “Eric Shelton would much rather have gotten a paycheck, earn a living that way, than get
a disability check. But he couldn't work.”
The league initial award of just $14,000 per year came after a ruling that Shelton’s injuries were not football related. That ruling was overturned by appeals. Smith said that the league would try to get out of making disability payments in all cases it
could get away with them. “Unless you’re lying completely paralyzed on the field of play, they’re going to fight you.”
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