Help

BI’s Article search uses Boolean search capabilities. If you are not familiar with these principles, here are some quick tips.

To search specifically for more than one word, put the search term in quotation marks. For example, “workers compensation”. This will limit your search to that combination of words.

To search for a combination of terms, use quotations and the & symbol. For example, “hurricane” & “loss”.

Login Register Subscribe

NFL kicker sues Tampa Bay Buccaneers over staph infection

Reprints
NFL kicker sues Tampa Bay Buccaneers over staph infection

A former National Football League player has sued his former team, claiming that unsanitary conditions at the team's medical facility resulted in a career-ending infection.

Lawrence Tynes, 36, filed suit Monday in Broward County Circuit Court in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, alleging negligence by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers after he contracted a drug-resistant staph infection while being treated at the team's facilities in 2013.

Mr. Tynes, a kicker, suffered the infection on the big toe of his kicking foot after a procedure to treat an ingrown toenail. A 10-year veteran, Mr. Tynes has not played in the NFL since getting the MRSA infection, which required multiple medical procedures including the insertion of an internal catheter containing antibiotics to fend off the infection.

The team failed to disclose and “actively concealed ongoing incidents of infection” among other people at the facility, the lawsuit states.

The Buccaneers paid Mr. Tynes his full salary of $905,000 in 2013 after placing him on the “non-football injury” list.

In seeking damages in the lawsuit, Mr. Tynes said he lost in excess of $20 million in expected future earnings as a result of the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection.

Mr. Tynes' lawsuit is the latest in a series of lawsuits in which former players have sued the league over working conditions and health concerns.

Read Next