Court of Appeal Rejects Rylands Garth's Appeals in Rugby Brain Injury Cases, Upholding Disclosure Failures
Appeals by law firm Rylands Garth on behalf of former rugby league and rugby union players involved in brain injury claims were denied by Judge Dexter Dias, who rejected both appeals on all grounds.
The court rulings uphold Senior Master Jeremy Cook's earlier finding that Rylands Garth failed to disclose necessary medical material to defendants, which include World Rugby, the Welsh Rugby Union, the Rugby Football Union in one case, and the Rugby Football League in the other.
In the rugby league litigation, 180 of 321 claimants now face potential strike-out of their claims, while in rugby union approximately 20% of 773 claimants—roughly 155 players—are at risk of strike-out.
The background to the appeals involves Rylands Garth's failure to comply with an order to disclose outstanding medical records by late October 2025. The firm had provided medical documents in their possession but did not disclose general practitioner records and medical histories requested by the defendants. Rylands Garth had argued that assembling this material was an unfeasibly large task, a position firmly rejected by the judge.
Judge Dias criticized Rylands Garth's solicitor, Richard Boardman, for seeking extensions and purported misunderstandings concerning disclosure duties, stating that the court lacked confidence in the approach towards disclosure taken by the firm.
The defendants have yet to formally respond to the claims and have been perceived as exploiting court delays. Rylands Garth, however, maintains they have disclosed hundreds of thousands of pages of documentation.
Further hearings are scheduled for March, at which the defendants are expected to move to strike out all cases affected by the disclosurefailures, potentially causing additional delays to the progress of these proceedings.
