To break up the Halifax talk, tomorrow could be a very important day for the concussion lawsuit against the CFL.
Supreme Court set to rule on concussion-related lawsuit against CFL
Gord Holder, Postmedia March 14, 2018
It could eventually lead to a milestone courtroom battle in Canada or it could mean that Canadian Football League players and alumni would have to settle for arbitration to pursue claims over head injuries.
The Supreme Court of Canada is expected to announce Thursday whether Arland Bruce will be granted leave to appeal British Columbia court rulings in a concussion-related lawsuit against the CFL and former commissioner Mark Cohon.
That ruling will come more than seven months after the initial filing of an application for leave to appeal, about 10 months after the British Columbia Court of Appeal ruled against Bruce, two years after his first legal setback in the Superior Court of British Columbia and nearly four years since the former wide receiver filed a lawsuit seeking compensation for brain damage he said was related to concussions during his 14-year CFL career.
Even if Bruce wins this week, the average time between the granting of leave to appeal and a hearing was 7.4 months in 2017, according to Supreme Court of Canada statistics, with another 4.6 months between a hearing and a judgment.
Combined, that would add another year to the process. Even then Bruce would still only know whether his claim for damages would be heard in court, as he desires, or before an arbitrator, as the CFL and Cohon have argued. Thus, the process that began in July 2014 could extend well into 2019 or into 2020 before a hearing in court or arbitration.
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