More Details on Concussion Related Lawsuit Against WWE, Judge Criticized Lawyer for Wrestlers, Ordered Him to Pay WWE Legal Fees

– As previously reported, WWE was cleared in the concussion-related lawsuits filed against them in Connecticut. All the lawsuits were dismissed on Monday, September 17 by US District Court Judge Vanessa L. Bryant filed a thirty-nine page ruling dismissing all of the suits, which had been brought by a variety of former performers against the company.

The New York Post published its own report of the news earlier today, which had some more details on the case.

Per the report, Bryant threw out the lawsuit, and said many of the legal claims were frivolous or filed after the statute of limitations expired. Additionally, Bryant criticized the lawyer representing the wrestlers, Konstantin Kyros. Kyros is based out of Hingham, Massachusetts. The judge called him to task for repeatedly failing to comply with court rules and orders. Also, Judge Bryant ordered Kyros to pay WWE’s legal fees. Those legal fees are speculated to be in the range of hundreds of thousands of dollas.

After the ruling, Kyros vowed to appeal to the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. He maintained the allegations against WWE were not frivolous and that Bryant was wrong about the claims being filed too late from the perspective of many of the wrestlers’ ailments being diagnosed years after they stopped performing in the ring or after they died.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit included the late Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, Joseph “Road Warrior Animal” Laurinaitis, Paul “Mr. Wonderful” Orndorff, Chris “King Kong Bundy” Pallies and the late Harry Masayoshi Fujiwara (Mr. Fuji). Snuka and Fujiwara were both diagnosed with CTE after their passings.

The lawsuit stated that WWE knew the risks of head injuries but did not warn the wrestlers. The lawsuit added that since WWE included specific scripted and choreographed moves, the company was directly responsible for wrestlers’ injuries.

In her ruling, Bryant indicated there was no evidence WWE knew that concussions or head blows during wrestling matches caused CTE.