Five law firms were barred from the NFL concussion settlement program in June 2026 after court-appointed special masters found they had orchestrated fraudulent Parkinson’s disease diagnoses for nearly 100 retired players and pulled more than $95 million from the settlement fund before an audit caught the pattern. The June 8, 2026 ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania named Douglas Grossinger, Attorney at Law; Feder Law, LLC; Pro Athlete Law Firm, P.A.; Syme Law, PLLC; and Reppert Oates & Vytell, LLC as participants in what the special masters called an “organized scheme” to circumvent the settlement’s anti-fraud safeguards.
How the Scheme Worked
Special Masters David A. Hoffman and Jo-Ann M. Verrier, both of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, described the mechanics across a 51-page filing. New York-licensed attorney Douglas Grossinger initiated the fraud, they said, and recruited other firms to file claims on his behalf so that no single practice would draw attention by submitting an unusually high number of Parkinson’s cases.
The firms sent retired players to doctors who were neither approved by the settlement program nor board-certified neurologists. Those physicians diagnosed the players with Parkinson’s disease and prescribed levodopa, a powerful symptom-suppressing medication, often after minimal contact or a single visit. The medical reports they produced were brief and frequently templated, with little or no review of the players’ actual histories.
With an outside diagnosis and an active prescription in hand, the player was then sent to a settlement-approved physician for the evaluation that would determine whether the claim qualified for payment. By that point the medication was masking whatever symptoms the player might or might not have had. The approved doctor, faced with a patient who appeared well but arrived carrying records of prior complaints and a current prescription, tended to defer to the paperwork rather than conduct a fully independent assessment. The special masters described this as “laundering” questionable diagnoses into payable claims.
Some of the unapproved doctors had financial red flags of their own, including bankruptcies, tax liens, and civil judgments. One rented a hotel suite in Dallas to conduct evaluations. The firms also worked to cover their tracks by using “co-counsel” arrangements to obscure paper trails, asking that communications stay unwritten, and withholding reports from physicians who had disagreed with the Parkinson’s diagnoses.
How Players Were Recruited
One of the more striking details in the ruling involved Bart Oates, a former three-time Super Bowl champion who played center for the New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers and earned a law degree during his playing career. Oates is a named partner at Reppert Oates & Vytell, one of the five barred firms. According to informants cited in the audit, Oates used his standing as a former player to gain the trust of retirees, cold-calling them and promising a Parkinson’s diagnosis if they switched their legal representation to his firm. The pitch reportedly targeted players who did not have obvious symptoms of the disease. As of mid-June 2026, Oates had not responded to requests for comment.
The Money Involved
The five firms collectively handled claims for 98 retired players. Before the audit exposed the pattern, 57 of those claims had been approved and paid, generating more than $95 million in payouts from the settlement fund. The attorneys collected roughly $20 million of that amount in fees.
Another 37 claims were still pending when the special masters issued their ruling, and all 37 were ordered denied. The affected players were told they could restart the claims process on their own.
The NFL’s settlement fund is uncapped, and the league framed the losses in direct terms. Spokesperson Brian McCarthy said the NFL was “pleased” with the decision and added that because the fund has no ceiling, “any fraud against the fund amounts to direct fraud on the NFL.” McCarthy called the remedies “necessary given the scope of misconduct” and said the league hoped the ruling would “deter future misconduct.”
The Sanctions and Appeals
The special masters barred all five firms from further participation in the settlement program and ordered the claims administrator to deny any claim linked to the nonqualified doctors involved in the scheme. They also directed the administrator to put additional safeguards in place for future Parkinson’s diagnoses. The ruling did not impose monetary penalties or explicitly refer the matter to criminal authorities, though the special masters noted they have the authority to send their findings to federal prosecutors.
The barred firms have signaled they intend to fight the decision. As of June 12, 2026, all five had pledged to appeal, with their attorneys arguing that the special masters’ review process was biased against the former players involved. The firms either declined or did not respond to press inquiries about the ruling itself.
Earlier Fraud in the Same Program
The 2026 ruling was not the first fraud uncovered inside the settlement. In 2021, Special Master Hoffman found that a Florida-based firm, Howard & Associates, P.A., had recruited doctors, demanded revisions to medical reports, and in some cases altered or forged records to support inflated diagnoses. That investigation, which began with tips received by the claims administrator in 2017, led to the disqualification of firm employees from the program. Also in 2021, an NFL motion to the court cited law firms coaching players on how to answer evaluation questions and, in one case, allegedly directing a retired player to arrive at his appointment “hung over and on Valium” to simulate cognitive impairment.
The special masters have also disqualified 11 doctors from the program over the years for concerns about diagnostic accuracy, including one physician who claimed to have conducted over 134 hours of examinations within a 48-hour period.
Tighter Screening for Parkinson’s Claims
The pattern of Parkinson’s fraud has already changed what legitimate claimants face. In January 2024, Hoffman mandated the use of the Gelb criteria, a 1999 diagnostic standard focused on motor symptoms, for all Parkinson’s claims. Since that mandate took effect, the approval rate for Parkinson’s claims has dropped from 85 percent to 44 percent. The June 2026 ruling adds further oversight on top of that standard.
The settlement, approved by Judge Anita B. Brody on April 22, 2015, compensates former players diagnosed with conditions including ALS (up to $5 million), Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease (up to $3.5 million each), and varying levels of neurocognitive impairment, with payouts adjusted for a player’s age and years of NFL service. The fund is uncapped and designed to last 65 years, and as of mid-2025 it had paid more than $1.3 billion to over 1,800 former players. Retired players pursuing a Parkinson’s claim now do so through a tighter screening process built directly in response to the conduct the special masters described.