Five law firms representing former NFL players defrauded the league’s concussion settlement fund of more than $95 million through questionable diagnoses of Parkinson’s disease and have been barred from further participating in the program, according to a ruling by court officials.
In a 51-page statement filed with the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Monday, two court-appointed federal special masters found that the claims administrator for the NFL’s settlement program had a “reasonable basis” for the findings of fraud in an extensive audit report. The statement detailed an “organized scheme” by the five firms in which they laundered questionable diagnoses in 98 former NFL players into payable claims.
Fifty-seven of those claims were approved and fully paid more than $95 million before the scheme was discovered, reaping the firms approximately $20 million in attorney’s fees, according to the report. The officials wrote that there is reason to doubt the diagnoses underlying all 57 of those claims. Four other claims were denied or withdrawn, and 37 were pending.
“These lawyers’ referral patterns, omission of material facts about the manufactured diagnoses, and lack of forthcoming response to scrutiny have made it impossible to tell good claims from bad,” Special Masters David A. Hoffman and Jo-Ann M. Verrier wrote. “They have cast doubt on every Parkinson’s disease claim going forward, and thus the claims administrator’s ability to reliably pay only true qualifying diagnoses.”
The claims administrator for the settlement program — which was approved in 2014 and meant to last 65 years — issued an 81-page audit report on Dec. 12, 2025, after receiving several credible tips. The administrator found that the firms submitted claims by outsourcing the diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease to physicians not approved by the program.
The special masters noted the five firms’ refusal to cooperate during the audit was an “aggravating factor” in their decision. In addition to barring the firms from future participation in the program, the special masters also ordered the claims administrator to deny any claim that includes any of the nonqualified doctors who took part in the scheme, and denied the 37 pending claims. The special masters ruled the claimants could seek new evaluations from program-approved physicians.
Furthermore, the special masters ordered the claims administrator to develop additional measures to ensure the reliability of Parkinson’s diagnoses.
“The NFL remains committed to ensuring that players and their families receive the benefits they deserve, and any misconduct threatens the integrity of the settlement and the prompt payment of legitimate claims,” an NFL spokesman said in a statement. “We are pleased with the Special Masters’ Decision, which sends a clear message that fraud in the NFL concussion settlement program will not be tolerated. The remedies that the special masters imposed are provided for by the settlement agreement and were necessary given the scope of misconduct uncovered by the claims administrator’s investigation. We are hopeful that this decision will deter future misconduct.”
None of the five firms — Douglas Grossinger, Attorney at Law; Feder Law, LLC; Pro Athlete Law Firm, P.A.; Syme Law, PLLC; and Reppert Oates & Vytell, LLC — responded when contacted by The Athletic.
The scheme, as detailed in the audit report, was relatively simple and consistent.
The firms recruited former NFL players as clients, then selected and paid for doctors who were not approved by the settlement program to diagnose the players with Parkinson’s and prescribe them medication. Typically it was levodopa, a widely prescribed treatment for movement symptoms of Parkinson’s, a neurodegenerative disease that causes tremors and other movement and balance problems.
During their initial evaluations with the players, the private physicians purported to observe symptoms of Parkinson’s and prescribed them medication after only one visit or at a follow-up visit shortly after, according to the report.
Common patterns were discovered with these evaluations, including brief and often templated medical reports, and the issuance of diagnoses without review of the players’ medical histories.
The firms also used the same doctors repeatedly to perform these initial evaluations. One of those doctors, according to the report, performed eight initial evaluations despite not being board-certified or known to be a movement disorders specialist.
After the initial evaluations, the former players were then seen by the settlement program’s qualified doctors. Many of the players would present few, if any, symptoms, according to the findings. But they had documentation of previously reported symptoms and prescriptions for medications that mitigate symptoms.
“Not being able to personally observe symptoms of Parkinson’s disease puts the (qualified) physicians in a difficult diagnostic position,” the special masters wrote. “On the one hand, if a patient shows no symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, then perhaps that patient does not have Parkinson’s disease. On the other hand, perhaps the patient does suffer from the early symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, but they are masked by medication.”
So the qualified physicians deferred to the players’ history, and players submitted their claims for benefits.
The ringleader of the scheme, according to the audit’s findings, was Grossinger, a Philadelphia-based attorney who submitted 15 claims of Parkinson’s disease and farmed out additional cases to Feder Law, Pro Athlete Law Firm and Syme Law, among others. The three firms used “co-counsel” arrangements to avoid a paper trail while submitting claims on Grossinger’s behalf.
Reppert Oates & Vytell, LLC (ROV) — of which retired NFL player Bart Oates is a partner — ran a separate but similar scheme, using Oates’ status as a former player to win the trust of clients. Informants for the audit claimed Oates promised former players a diagnosis of Parkinson’s if they fired their attorneys and switched to his firm. Some of these previous attorneys of players recruited by Grossinger and Oates’ firm claimed the pitch was targeted for players who did not obviously have Parkinson’s.
On at least one occasion, according to the audit report, Grossinger arranged an off-the-books deal to the attorneys whose client he poached. The settlement program has a lien resolution program that is overseen by the special masters and publicly details the trail of work and associated costs. The claims administrator concluded that Grossinger tried to avoid any public exposure of his scheme by proposing to pay the terminated attorney $75,000 and having the player eventually pay the attorney another $25,000. That player would also verbally agree to pay Grossinger a $150,000 “bonus” and 10 percent of his settlement award, according to the audit.
Grossinger and ROV, according to the audit, used other methods to try to conceal their involvement. Grossinger requested that nothing, not even text messages, be put in writing. For at least one claim submission, ROV omitted medical reports from physicians who did not believe the player had Parkinson’s, the audit found.
The special masters also wrote that they suspected the scheme involved other law firms and claims not yet identified, meaning the amount of the alleged fraud “may end up being materially higher.”