Deal ends concussion lawsuit filed after McDowell linebacker Heubel collapsed during game
After nearly three years of litigation, and with a trial scheduled for July, former McDowell High School linebacker Jonathan Heubel and Allegheny Health Network have settled his lawsuit over the traumatic brain injury he suffered following a football-related concussion in the fall of 2020.
Erie County Judge David Ridge approved the settlement petition at a hearing on Friday. The petition does not include the amount of the settlement, and the lawyers involved did not disclose the terms at the hearing.
Ridge said his order that approves the settlement would keep the financial details under seal for now, as the lawyers requested.
Ridge, who said he reviewed terms, said he found the financial amount "appropriate and reasonable under all the circumstances," including the needs for the future care for Heubel.
Heubel, 20, known as Johnny, was in a coma after he suffered the brain injury. He remains unable to care for himself. He now lives in Florida with his mother, Megan Beasley, and stepfather, Brandon Beasley.
Megan Beasley is Heubel's legal guardian because of his incapacitation. She said at the hearing that she approved of the settlement on her son's behalf. Beasley and all the lawyers participated in the hearing via teleconference.
The settlement is expected to compensate Heubel for his injuries and help pay for his care. Some of the settlement will also pay for attorney's fees and other costs associated with the litigation, Ridge said at the hearing.
The lead lawyer for Heubel, Brendan Lupetin, of Pittsburgh, said the money for Heubel would be placed in an irrevocable settlement protection trust.
The lawyers did not discuss Heubel's present health condition. Ridge said that, based on information in the settlement agreement, Heubel is "doing well."
Lawsuit focused on how athletic trainers handled Heubel
Heubel and his mother, the plaintiffs, demanded $22.5 million in damages in their lawsuit, filed in Erie County Common Pleas Court in April 2021. They sued the Pittsburgh-based Allegheny Health Network and AHN's Saint Vincent Medical Group, affiliated with AHN's Saint Vincent Hospital in Erie.
Heubel and his mother sued over claims of professional negligence related to the traumatic brain injury he suffered while playing for McDowell, in the Millcreek Township School District, during a home football game on Sept. 25, 2020.
Heubel, 17 at the time, collapsed on the sideline after he took himself out of the game. He had walked off the field after making a tackle at the start of the second half, according to the lawsuit.
Heubel and his mother claimed Heubel fell victim during the game to what is known as second impact syndrome — they claimed he suffered a concussion on the field before he had recovered from a concussion that he suffered at a game two weeks earlier.
Heubel and Beasley claimed the AHN athletic trainers, working under contract with the Millcreek School District, failed to properly diagnose Heubel's previous concussion. The school district was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
The suit sought the $22.5 million in damages to compensate Heubel for his injuries, future medical care and loss of income due to his inability to work.
Before Heubel was injured, PennLive, the website for the Harrisburg Patriot-News, had ranked him 182nd out of the top 190 college prospects among high school football players in Pennsylvania in the class of 2021.
Heubel had been looking forward to playing football in college and studying sports medicine, according to his lawsuit. The suit stated that the brain injury has left him unable to feed himself or walk on his own, and that he is relearning shapes and how to count as part of his rehabilitation.
AHN said it did nothing wrong as it pulled others into case
AHN denied the claims and attempted to blame others for any negligence. In a move that prolonged the case, lawyers for AHN in April 2023 filed court documents indicating that they intended to file what would amount to countersuits against UPMC Hamot as well as as a chiropractor and her practice, Progressive Chiropractic Center, of Fairview Township.
Heubel was initially treated in the emergency room at Hamot before he was transferred to UPMC Presbyterian in Pittsburgh, according to court records. UPMC and Hamot had nothing to do with his care before then, and the AHN-affiliated athletic trainers examined him leading up to the game, according to the records.
The chiropractor, Phoebe Kutterna, treated Heubel for headaches and neck and back pain leading up to a football game on Sept. 25, 2020, according to court records.
AHN dropped its legal action against UPMC Hamot in May 2023 without filing a full-blown civil complaint against it. AHN continued its case against Kutterna through a full-blown complaint, and Kutterna and her practice denied that they had done anything wrong in the treatment of Heubel.
As the dispute between AHN and Kutterna consumed additional time, Ridge in August rescheduled the trial in the entire case from October to this July.
Ridge recently received notice that lawyers for Heubel and his mother had prepared a petition to settle the case with AHN, according to court records. Ridge on Tuesday filed an order that scheduled Friday's settlement hearing.
Litigation could continue between AHN and chiropractor
The settlement is only between AHN and Heubel and his mother, the lawyers said at the hearing. A lawyer for AHN, Jason Logue, of Pittsburgh, told Ridge that AHN plans to continue to sue Kutterna and her practice in an attempt to have them compensate AHN in light of the settlement
AHN "does intend to continue our cross claim against the joined defendants," Logue said.
The lawyer for Kutterna and her practice, Robert Dillon, of Philadelphia, said at the hearing that his clients intend to continue to fight AHN's claims. He also said that the litigation could lead to the disclosure of the settlement amount between AHN and Heubel and his mother if the case went before a jury.
"That is an issue for down the road," Logue told Ridge.
Ridge said he approved the settlement agreement with the understanding that he might have to address disclosure issues later.
Heubel's case had potential to be one of county's largest
Logue did not immediately respond to a request for comment following the settlement hearing, which lasted about 20 minutes.
Lupetin, the lead lawyer for Heubel, represented him along with lawyers Mark A. Smith, of Pittsburgh, and Anthony Angelone, of Erie.
"This matter has been resolved to the satisfaction of the family," Angelone told the Erie Times-News.
He said he and the other lawyers for Heubel are limited in what they can say about the settlement.
If the case between Heubel and AHN had gone to trial, it would have had the potential — based on the lawsuit's demand of $22.5 million in damages — to yield one of the largest verdicts in a civil trial in Erie County Common Pleas Court.
The largest civil verdict in the county came in 2011. It was a $21.6 million award against the former Hamot Medical Center, now UPMC Hamot, over the botched delivery of a boy who was born with severe disabilities in November 2006.
Lupetin was the plaintiff's attorney for a more recent record-setting civil case in Erie County Common Pleas Court. In September, a jury returned a $3.2 million verdict for his client, longtime Erie oral surgeon John. L. Alonge, who injured his shoulder and back when he slipped and fell in operating room at Saint Vincent Hospital in 2020.
Alonge and his wife sued Saint Vincent for negligence. The hospital denied the claims.
The $3.2 million verdict is believed to be the highest jury award in a slip-and-fall case in Erie County Common Pleas Court. The $3.2 million verdict is also one of the largest recently returned in Erie County Common Pleas Court.
Competing legal claims over a concussion
If the Heubel case had gone to trial, the evidence and arguments likely would have centered on how much the athletic trainers and others knew about Heubel's concussion-related symptoms before he became injured at the football game on Sept. 25, 2020.
AHN and the other defendants did not challenge that Heubel suffered from second impact syndrome, according to AHN's pretrial statement filed in the case. AHN contended that Heubel did not disclose that he was suffering from concussion-related symptoms.
"The evidence in this case consistently establishes Jonathan reported symptom-free status to training staff, coaches and family," according to AHN's statement.
Heubel and Beasley claimed AHN had enough information to determine that Heubel had a previous concussion and was still exhibiting symptoms. That first concussion occurred during the first game of the 2020 season, on Sept. 11, 2020, against Erie High School at McDowell's Gus Anderson Field.
Heubel did not play in McDowell's second game of the season, on Sept. 18, 2020, against Butler High School. Earlier that day, according to the plaintiffs' pretrial statement, Heubel, his stepfather and the McDowell football team's coaching staff "decided that Jonathan would not travel with the team to play Butler High School. This was the first game Jonathan had missed since his grade school days."
The plaintiffs then claimed the athletic training staff failed to have Heubel held out of the game on Sept. 25, 2020, against Cathedral Preparatory School, McDowell's archrival.
Much of the information on Heubel's concussion, the plaintiffs said, came from Heubel himself. Despite that information, the lawsuit claimed, AHN athletic training staff failed "to perform or carry out a proper and complete concussion protocol" for Heubel.
As a result, the suit claimed, Heubel suffered "a catastrophic brain injury that left him severely impaired physically and mentally."
The suit claimed the second impact syndrome caused Heubel's brain to bleed profusely due to a subdural hematoma and made him comatose. One of the medical reports filed in the case says that, following the injury, Heubel was "unconscious for 10 days' time."
Shocked community responds and Heubel's number is retired
Heubel's collapse on the sidelines and his head injury shocked the Erie community, which showed widespread support for him and his family. In January 2023, the Millcreek School District announced that it would retire Heubel's jersey number, 23, in a first for the McDowell football program.
A petition that asked the district to retire the number garnered nearly 4,000 signatures, Heubel's family said in January 2023. The family commented on social media on the decision to retire No. 23.
The family has chronicled Heubel's rehabilitation on Facebook.
"To address the tenacity that prevailed with unconditional support and love for our Johnny, we thank you," the family's post said in January 2023. "We celebrate with you.
"No. 23 will always be in our hearts on that field. The number means something different to us and has been associated with such a movement and of awareness since that night."
Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Former McDowell linebacker Heubel and AHN settle concussion lawsuit
