Judge Orders WWE Concussion Lawsuit Plaintiffs to File Amended Claim Or Lose The Case

The plaintiffs on the concussion-related lawsuits against WWE were dealt a setback, as a judge ordered their lawyer to file an amended claim in short order. PWInsider reports that Judge Vanessa L. Bryant in the US District Court of Connecticut ruled that Konstantine Kyros, who is representing dozens of wrestlers against WWE, must file an amended claim within thirty-five days that adheres to “the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure” or they will lose the case.

Kyros has been a controversial figure in the concussion lawsuits. Kyros has represented other wrestlers such as Billy Jack Haynes in similar lawsuits that were dismissed due to the shoddy nature of their arguments and a lack of evidence to back up their claims. WWE has regularly taken aim at Kyros over his tactics during the lawsuit, including the current one in which they said in a statement, “A federal judge has already found that this lawyer made patently false allegations about WWE, and this is more of the same.”

Bryant’s ruling notes that despite previous instructions from the court, the plaintiffs have now “filed a 335 page complaint with 805 paragraphs that includes numerous allegations that a reasonable attorney would know are inaccurate, irrelevant, or frivolous.” These include the filing of a 2015 study on CTE, which would be irrelevant because none of Kyros’ clients were working for WWE at that time, claiming that a female wrestler was told not to report a sexual assault while on a WWE tour, which has nothing to do with her claims about her neurological injuries. Bryant noted that Kyros also used the fictional post-concussion angle between Shawn Michaels and Owen Hart from 1996 as proof that WWE was aware of the dangers of concussions and CTE. CTE was not specifically discovered until 2006.

WWE has asked for sanctions against Kyros in the past. The company argued that he and other attorneys in the case plagiarized parts of an NFL concussion lawsuit for this lawsuit, and that he had made provably (and already-proven) false claims over the course of discovery. The company had responded to the most recent filing by the plaintiffs asking to dismiss the existing lawsuits and rule in favor of World Wrestling Entertainment.

While the court did not yet give WWE the win, Bryant said that the existing claim is still “unnecessarily and extremely long, with an overwhelming number of irrelevant allegations. Parsing each of the Laurinaitis Plaintiffs’ asserted claims to figure out exactly which claims might be legally and factually supportable would be both a waste of judicial resources. It would also be unduly prejudicial to the WWE and McMahon, because the precise contours of the Laurinaitis Plaintiffs’ claims are so amorphous that the WWE and McMahon would be at a loss to determine how to defend against them.”

She continues, “in the interests of justice, fairness to WWE and McMahon, the efficient and effective management of the Court’s docket, in an abundance of deference to the Windham Defendants and Laurinaitis Plaintiffs in their heretofore unsuccessful efforts to file pleadings in conformity with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and finally, to assure disposition of this case on the merits” that the Plaintiffs would have 35 days to file an amended pleading that would comply with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.” The amended lawsuit must explain the “factual basis” of the claims “clearly and concisely.”

In addition, each of the plaintiffs must submit video affidavits within thirty-five days and provide facts about their “knowledge” that supports their claims. The affidavits must see the plaintiffs sworn in, putting them under penalty of perjury. It must include the dates they wrestled for WWE or any affiliates, if they wrestled for more than one promoter or company during that time, whether they signed “any agreement or other document in connection with their engagement to wrestle by or for WWE or any of its agents or affiliates”, “whether they were ever or are now in possession of any document relating to their engagement to wrestle by or for WWE or any of its agents or affiliates, including without limitation W-4s, W-2s or 1099s.”

Each plaintiff must also be asked what any WWE employees said or did that supports the claims in the lawsuit that WWE knew about and hid the effects of concussions. Each claim against WWE must include a reference to the specific paragraph of the complaint, when and where such act occurred or such statement was made, the identities of any and all the persons present at the time of the act or statement, and “any and all other facts personally known to the affiant that form the basis of their belief that WWE or any or its agents or affiliates knew or should have known that wrestling caused any traumatic brain injuries, including CTE.”

Should this not happen, Judge Bryant warned that she will dismiss the lawsuits against WWE with prejudice.