A Dallas jury awarded the family of former SMU offensive lineman JT Davis $140 million in a CTE case against the NCAA last week. The organization is appealing but the verdict sends a message that goes well beyond this case.
JT Davis spent four years playing on the offensive line at SMU in the late 1950s. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2001 and fought the disease for 16 years before he died. A brain examination after his death confirmed Stage 4 CTE. His son, John Mark Davis, watched all of it happen and spent six years pursuing the NCAA in a Dallas courtroom. Last week, he got his verdict.
The jury awarded the Davis family $30 million in compensatory damages and $110 million in punitive damages. One hundred and forty million dollars total. The first CTE case against the NCAA to go to trial ended in a loss the organization will be fighting for years.
The NCAA responded quickly. In a statement released after the verdict the organization expressed sympathy for the Davis family but made clear it had no intention of accepting the outcome.
"The NCAA expresses its deepest sympathies to the Davis family, but we respectfully disagree with the jury's verdict," the statement read. "The evidence that was presented was largely based on the knowledge and science as it exists today, rather than what was known by the parties in the 1950s when Mr. Davis played college football. The NCAA will continue to aggressively defend against cases like this one. We will pursue all legal options in this case, including an appeal."
The jury heard a different story. The Davis family introduced the NCAA's own medical handbook from 1933, which outlined concussion protocols, including a provision that players should not return to competition for 21 days or longer after extended symptoms. Davis played two decades after that handbook was written.
Their attorneys also introduced internal communications from a former NCAA Chief Medical Officer that the family argued showed the organization was aware of CTE risks and did not act. The NCAA disputed that repeated head impacts cause CTE and at one point called the disease hypothetical. The jury was not persuaded.
Texas law caps punitive damages at $750,000, meaning the $110 million figure will be reduced dramatically on appeal. For an organization already managing over 500 similar concussion lawsuits in the pipeline and committed to a $2.77 billion House settlement, the financial consequence of this case is only part of the story. The precedent it sets for every case that follows is the part worth watching.