Youth football league faces lawsuit over suicide, brain damage

The mother of a football player who committed suicide, and was later found to have a degenerative brain disease, has filed a $5 million lawsuit against the Pop Warner youth league, alleging that it failed to protect her son from the risk of head injuries.

Lawyers for Debra Pyka on Thursday filed the lawsuit in a Wisconsin federal court, seeking punitive damages for the death of her son, Joseph Chernach, who in 2012 hung himself in his mother’s shed at the age of 25.

Chernach, who began playing Pop Warner football at the age of 11, suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain disease also known as dementia pugilistica. Pyka did not discover that her son had CTE until receiving his autopsy results more than a year after his death, the lawsuit said. The CTE Center at Boston University defines the condition as "a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma."

The suit claims that around the time Chernach started his sophomore year in college, the "cumulative effects of Dementia Pugilistica and Post Concussion Syndrome began to impact his cognition, behavior and mood."

"From that point on,” the suit adds, “his cognitive functioning declined each year until his death."

The lawsuit alleges that playing tackle football in the youth league was a “substantial factor” in Chernach "getting the disease of Dementia Pugilistica" and calls Pop Warner football "an abnormally dangerous/ultra-hazardous activity." The organization's "negligence," the suit adds, were factors that led him to commit suicide.

Pop Warner spokesman Josh Pruce released a statement on Friday evening calling Chernach's death a "tragedy" and saying that the organization has implemented rule changes and medical protocols in an effort to "make the game as safe as possible for children."

"This is a terrible tragedy, and our hearts go out to Joseph's family," the statement read. "While there is incredible sadness in this story, we question the merits of singling out four years of youth football amid a career of sports that lasted through high school."

"We have implemented significant rule changes and medical protocols as we constantly look at how to make the game as safe as possible for children. In addition, we emphasize heightened coaching and parent education in carrying out these safety measures. While there is incredible sadness in this story, we question the merits of singling out four years of youth football amid a career of sports that lasted through high school.

The Pop Warner lawsuit comes amid growing scrutiny over brain injuries suffered by football players.

A recent Boston University study looked at the effects of playing tackle football before age 12, revealing connections between early exposure to the game and brain function years later.

Researchers studied 42 former NFL players between the ages of 40 and 69. They were divided into two groups, based on whether they started playing tackle football before the age of 12 or afterward, and given a series of tests to measure their verbal IQ, ability to reason and memory. The age of 12 was chosen because, researchers said, "A critical stage of brain development occurs between the ages of 10 and 12." 

The study found that the players who started playing tackle football before the age of 12 "performed significantly worse" in the testing than the other group. 

Dr. Robert Stern, the lead author of the paper, told ESPN last month that while the findings of a study of NFL players could not be generalized to those in the public who never played in the league, "it does suggest...you shouldn't hurt your brain over and over and over again as a child."

In January, Dr. Julian Bailes, the chair of the Pop Warner medical advisory committee, called the results of the study "flawed."

"There's absolutely no information on the number of concussions that the [study subjects] had in high school or college, or the severity of the concussions," Bailes told ESPN. "I think what probably happened is lots of them get no concussions in youth, but three in high school, five in college and 10 in the NFL. They're trying to say it's the age of first exposure that is the problem, when it's more likely cumulative exposure.”

Thursday’s lawsuit comes as the NFL is grappling with several concussion-related class-action lawsuits. On Monday, a judge presiding over a proposed concussion settlement between the NFL and some 20,000 retired players said additional assurances would be needed before she accepted the settlement.

Under the proposal, the NFL agreed to pay up to $5 million to each of the families of the ex-players who suffered the most serious brain injuries. U.S. District Judge Anita Brody, who gave preliminary approval to the accord on July 7, said she wanted assurances that individuals diagnosed after that date would also be covered by the settlement.