Brain injury cases should be thrown out, High Court told

Brain injury cases should be thrown out, High Court toldImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, The legal action against rugby's authorities has been going since 2020Published3 minutes agoCommentsThe High Court has been told that hundreds of cases in rugby's multi-million-pound concussion legal action should be thrown out.Players from both codes of the sport claim that the authorities failed to put safeguards in place to protect them from the consequences of repeated head impacts.World Rugby, the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), Rugby Football Union (RFU) and Rugby Football League (RFL) deny breaching a duty of care to protect the players from injury.Lawyers representing the governing bodies have argued that claims should be thrown out due to documents surrounding the neurological testing process not being disclosed, which they claim is a breach of a 2024 court order.Ben Youngs Investigates: How Safe Is Rugby?AttributioniPlayerBrain injury legal action faces threat of collapsePublished19 MayPlayers must provide medical records in concussion lawsuitPublished22 December 2025At a hearing on Wednesday, they said that failure to comply with the order should lead to dismissal of 132 of the claims against the rugby league bodies and 378 of the claims against the rugby union bodies.Michael Kent KC, for World Rugby, Welsh Rugby and the Rugby Football Union, said in written submissions that having the claims thrown out was "clearly a measure of last resort", but that "compliance has still not been achieved".William Audland KC, for the rugby league bodies, said in written submissions that non-compliance with court orders was "systemic and without good reason", and that the claims should be dismissed.Susan Rodway KC, for the players, said in written submissions that the breaches were "neither serious nor significant" given the "context of this complex and documentarily voluminous litigation", and that throwing out the claims...