Derek Boogaard's Family Is Suing The NHL For Wrongful Death

[longsuffering]

I'm saddened by many of the posts here. What seems to be lost is the fact that this is a human being we're talking about, not a punching bad.

He worked for an employer who neglected to take care of their employee, in fact, they probably knowingly enabled his drug use because it suited their own purpose. They put the best interests of the employer (the hockey club) above the best interests of the employee and KNOWINGLY disregarded the health and welfare of the employee.

Boogard's action contributed to his own death, but it's not all on him. His hockey club should have taken better care of him.

[killer_carlson]

Correct me if i am wrong, but at the end was there something about his brother providing him pills?

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

Boogard's action contributed to his own death, but it's not all on him. His hockey club should have taken better care of him.

What's next? Parents getting sued when if one of their children OD's because they should have taken better car of the child? What were Boogaard's parents doing to help him throughout his issues? Sitting on their hands and hoping the NHL takes car of their son's issues? Nothing but a blame game here, lawyers wanting to fill their pockets and nothing is going to change the fact that he's gone. No amount of money will change that.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

What's next? Parents getting sued when if one of their children OD's because they should have taken better car of the child? What were Boogaard's parents doing to help him throughout his issues? Sitting on their hands and hoping the NHL takes car of their son's issues? Nothing but a blame game here, lawyers wanting to fill their pockets and nothing is going to change the fact that he's gone. No amount of money will change that.

I was about to make a similar comment. The NHL should countersue the family, since everything the family alleges applies to them. They allowed him to choose a career where he suffered head trauma. They failed to monitor his perscriptions. And and his brother helped him purchase additional drugs illegally.

The family's reaction is understandable, but anything the NHL is guilty of, they are twice over.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

I was about to make a similar comment. The NHL should countersue the family, since everything the family alleges applies to them. They allowed him to choose a career where he suffered head trauma. They failed to monitor his perscriptions. And and his brother helped him purchase additional drugs illegally.

The family's reaction is understandable, but anything the NHL is guilty of, they are twice over.

I'm sure his parents didn't have any issues with him being a goon when it was paying him millions of dollars but now he's dead from substance abuse all of a sudden his role was a problem. The parents simply have to bear responsibility just as much as the team here as they put him through hockey and supported his career. All professional sports have risks that nobody seems to care about when it amounts to fame and fortune but when something unfortunate happens to a player/former player that may have been linked to playing everyone wants to blame the league even though they all turned a blind eye to the risks when times were good.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

Correct me if i am wrong, but at the end was there something about his brother providing him pills?

Aaron Boogaard was charged with giving Derek an oxycodone pill at the start of a night of partying the day he died, but the charge was dropped because it was apparently Derek's own drugs that Aaron was asked to hold.

http://online.wsj.com/article/APd1e1...9cd8fa87d.html

Of course, it says a great deal about Aaron that he not only agreed to hold Derek's drugs, but also to give them back and to take him out partying on his first day of unsupervised leave from his rehab plan.

Aaron Boogaard is far more responsible for Derek's death than the NHL is.

[Buff]

It doesn't matter who is at fault. This just reeks of ugliness. According to the lawsuit, the NHL appears to be wreckless in player safety, yet the family appears to be greedy in their search of closure.

Perhaps there was a better way to approach making a change in player safety. Maybe they tried and this is their last discoure. The optics do no't look good for any party involved.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by GGG

If multiple team doctors over perscribed him medication I can see there being some liability. I dont think this is about cash as Bougaard was well paid. More so it is about answers to why as part of the grieving process.

It might not be all team doctors, I've read up on athlete addictions and a lot of these guys have doctors on the side who are willing to write up prescriptions for a bit of cash because they run through their official ones so quickly. It would surprise me in out of the dozen doctors writing scripts for him that half of them were not team doctors but doctors in different cities or states.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Drury18

There's two things that stand out in that statement that make me think this is bogus:



Trainers/Athletic Therapists have no medical authority to prescribe or administer drugs and most that I know in the NHL will not give them anything more then Tylenol or Advil. NATA and CATA have no tolerance for
Athletic Trainers playing pharmacist. And "staff" like coaches, equipment managers or GM's. It seems highly unlikely as he was not an elite player that trainers or staff would be giving him anything under the table. He would have been sent to the Team Physician if he was wanting any sort of drugs.



The Minnesota Wild currently list 7 people (3 Surgeons, 2 Dentists, 1 Team Physician and a Medical Director) with doctorates and the possible ability to prescribe pills on their roster. Who are the other 5 people he saw that allegedly prescribed him pills? And again, rarely would you be seeing one physician without them knowing what you are currently on. NHL records are meticulous about what the player is taking and who prescribed it. Being he was also in the NHL Drug Program, they would have been watching him even closer. Him going to 12 doctors and getting a stockpile of drugs seems almost impossible. It's not like the normal person hopping from walk in clinic to walk in clinic and getting prescriptions.


Then you have this:



This just doesn't add up. When you throw the brother into the mix and the charges and possibly getting rid of the brothers stash, it really seems that most of these pills were obtained outside of what he was getting from the NHL.

What you're saying may well be true, but the whole claim is that the procedures you're citing were not followed. When things are supposed to operate in a certain fashion and they do not a negligence claim arises, that's the entire basis of the suit.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Drury18

One other thing of note: Boogaard's death happened on the first night of the second unsupervised recess he was granted while in the NHL Drug Rehabilitation program. The Ranger's had sent him there seeing he was in poor shape, the program decided to grant him the leaves and he died during the second leaves.

The NHL DOES NOT run this program, they are run by a licensed medical facility. Typically a "proper" drug/alcohol addiction program within a hospital or other medical facility. The NHL had done its part to get him help. They placed him in the facility. While in the care of help, he passed. To me, this is the NHL doing its due diligence to assist the player. You can't force someone to change, you can just keep offering help, which the NHL did. The failure either happened within the program at the facility letting him out when he was still very unwell or the player's unwillingness to internalize what the program was trying to help him with.

You are ignoring the lead up, including all the claims of excessive prescriptions and ignored failed tests you cited above, as well as ignoring the fact that farming out something to an outside company/agency does not absolve you of liability.

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Jake

To me, if Boogaard was wrongly prescribed medications and the doctors were negligent, they should be responsible, not the NHL. Doctors have their own professional organizations that deal with this.

The doctors were acting as employees of the NHL. Employers are responsible for the actions of their employees.

[Azhouse]

Originally Posted by manhattanboy

i believe a publicly funded CBC movie is already in the works.

fyp

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

I was about to make a similar comment. The NHL should countersue the family, since everything the family alleges applies to them. They allowed him to choose a career where he suffered head trauma. They failed to monitor his perscriptions. And and his brother helped him purchase additional drugs illegally.

The family's reaction is understandable, but anything the NHL is guilty of, they are twice over.

The family wasn't prescribing him medication, and therefore had no duty to monitor his prescriptions. The family wasn't operating a drug treatment program, and therefore had no duty to comply with the standards of that program.

His family likely should have done a better job of looking out for him much earlier in his life/career, but that has nothing to do with legal liability.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by valo403

The family wasn't prescribing him medication, and therefore had no duty to monitor his prescriptions. The family wasn't operating a drug treatment program, and therefore had no duty to comply with the standards of that program.

His family likely should have done a better job of looking out for him much earlier in his life/career, but that has nothing to do with legal liability.

Yes, I am aware of this. Ultimately, this is a situation where the family likely wants someone to blame. But the blame ultimately rests on Boogaard's own decisions, and the family's willingness to go along with it - and in Aaron's case especially, to encourage it.

I can't guess at what level of culpability, if any, the NHL bears until the evidence emerges. So far, all we have is an "its everyone's fault but his own" complaint.

[calumniate]

From my 'non-law' point of view it seems as though the Rangers were not pressing him to come back. Had this been the Oilers I think it would have been a different story. But from the Rangers perspective they were giving him time off until he was medically cleared to play?

edit - Rangers not wild

[valo403]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Yes, I am aware of this. Ultimately, this is a situation where the family likely wants someone to blame. But the blame ultimately rests on Boogaard's own decisions, and the family's willingness to go along with it - and in Aaron's case especially, to encourage it.

I can't guess at what level of culpability, if any, the NHL bears until the evidence emerges. So far, all we have is an "its everyone's fault but his own" complaint.

Boogard's own decisions were enabled by the NHL and it's agents, at least that's the crux of the complaint.

[Russic]

If I recall from a very lengthy Boogaard article that I read a few months after his death, the Rangers medical staff were accused of some pretty dangerous and flagrant things with regards to pain medications. You can make the pill-popper arguments all you want, but if the family can prove that the team was supplying him with dangerous amounts of medication to get him back on the ice, they could have a point.

Sorry, no link to the article (and I don't want Est1980 to yell at me).

[Bootsy]

If it is proven league doctor's were over-prescripting pills to him I can understand the family wanting some accountability there as an enabler. The brunt of all this still falls on Boogaard and his poor decisions.

Blaming the NHL for the physical trauma and brain damage that Boogaard sustained during six seasons is nothing but a load of crap. There are risk's involved in the role and lifestyle he led and he could have left at anytime.

I don't think this is a cash grab, just a grieving family looking for anyone to blame except for their son in his self inflicted death. It's much easier to deal with this type of incident if there is a scapegoat to blame.

[Resolute 14]

Originally Posted by valo403

Boogard's own decisions were enabled by the NHL and it's agents, at least that's the crux of the complaint.

Agreed.

Offhand, I don't put any stock in the implications of dangerous workplace. It was his own decision to become a fighter, and suing the NHL for head injuries is as stupid as suing the IBC for a boxer suffering same.

So it will be curious to see if they can show the Wild or Rangers rushing him back without following a proper medical protocol. I hope the complaint itself gets posted, because I would also like to see if the Rangers or Wild are also sued by name.

The managing of medications, etc, will also be interesting. How many prescriptions were filled out by the team doctors? How many did Boogaard get from other sources, and did he inform the team doctors? What were the doctors giving him vs. what he was getting illegally?

Failing to suspend him for violating the substance abuse program conditions... are suspensions mandatory? If not, I'm not seeing an argument there. Though Theo Fleury also alleges that the program looked the other way on violations.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by CaptainCrunch

It might not be all team doctors, I've read up on athlete addictions and a lot of these guys have doctors on the side who are willing to write up prescriptions for a bit of cash because they run through their official ones so quickly. It would surprise me in out of the dozen doctors writing scripts for him that half of them were not team doctors but doctors in different cities or states.

Remember also that in the US the doctors are under more pressure to do as the patient wishes as they are directly being paid by them. I strongly doubt there is any sort of electronic record that all doctors would have access too. I also doubt many of these doctors would have prescribed these of they knew how much he was getting from other doctors. It would be very easy to talk to different doctors and get them to send scripts to different pharmacies. Lots of people in the states have done it (Rush Limbaugh, cough).
Granted that's all speculation, but my guess is the area of liability would be more that the doctors and team didn't do enough to ensure this want happening. Ie Negligence vs. Wilfully contributing