Overview
- The London High Court ruled on Friday that the first batch of roughly 561 claims by former rugby players can go to trial despite earlier failures by the claimants’ previous lawyers to comply with disclosure orders.
- Claimants, including several former internationals, say repeated concussive and sub-concussive blows caused conditions such as early-onset dementia, Parkinson’s, epilepsy and motor neurone disease and that governing bodies breached a duty of care.
- World Rugby, the RFU, WRU, the Rugby Football League and other bodies deny liability and argue long-term neurological risks were not a duty they owed and that certain injuries are an inherent risk of playing rugby.
- The judge accepted that disclosure and procedural failures caused delay but found the breaches were the responsibility of the former law firm rather than the vulnerable claimants, and noted the claimants have instructed KP Law.
- Next steps set by the court include a further hearing to impose conditions and stricter case management, with defendants still contesting the scope of any duty of care and outstanding medical disclosures remaining central to the trial timetable.