Kyros Law announces that it has filed a Petition for Writ of Certiorari in the United States Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision affirming the dismissal of the class action lawsuits brought by former WWE wrestlers for neurological injuries they sustained in the ring.
The cases originally brought by Billy Jack Haynes along with Russ McCullough, Matt Wiese and Ryan Sakoda were dismissed by the Connecticut Courts in 2016. The wrestlers appealed and were told they had filed too early, and Ordered by Mandate to wait for the final outcome in other consolidated cases in the District of Connecticut. Those cases included the Laurinaitis action in which wrestlers including Jimmy Snuka, Balls Mahoney and Mr. Fuji were diagnosed with Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) after their deaths.
Once the Laurinaitis case was dismissed in 2018, Haynes and the other putative class plaintiffs again appealed. This time, the Second Circuit ruled the wrestlers were too late to file their appeals. The Court relied on a 2018 Supreme Court Case Hall v Hall decided in the interim which ruled that cases consolidated can now be immediately appealed. The Second Circuit applied the new Hall rule retroactively to deny the wrestlers second appeal. This 2019 Second Circuit ruling per the wrestlers petition effectively created an impossible ‘Catch-22’ depriving them of any rights to appeal or have any meaningful hearing on the claims they presented.
The petition also seeks review of Cassandra Frazier’s claims regarding the untimely death of long-time WWE wrestler, Nelson Frazier who was similarly denied appellate rights under the Second Circuit interpretation of Hall.
The wrestlers seek relief from the US Supreme Court as they have been deprived of their fundamental rights as US Citizens, including their right to appeal.