Reggie Bush’s injury at the Edward Jones Dome cost him the 2015 season. Three years later, it will make him a very rich man.
A St. Louis court has ordered the Los Angeles Rams to pay Bush $12.45 million in damages after finding the team 100 percent liable for a knee injury Bush suffered at the franchise’s old stadium in St. Louis, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Tuesday.
The Rams will pay the ex-running back $4.95 million in compensatory damages and $7.5 million in punitive damages, according to the Post-Dispatch.
Bush, then with the San Francisco 49ers, slipped and fell on an exposed strip of concrete after running out of bounds on a punt return during a Nov. 1, 2015 game against the Rams. He tore his lateral meniscus and missed the rest of the season.
In Bush’s lawsuit, which he initially filed in 2016, the former running back claimed the injury “ultimately ended (his) career” and denied him between $10 and $15 million, as he was prepared to negotiate a new three-year contract after the 2015 season.
Bush also cited the stadium’s failure to account for player safety, referring to the strip of concrete behind both benches as the “concrete ring of death.”
The Dome covered the concrete surface with rubber padding two weeks after Bush’s injury. The renovation didn’t make much of an impact, though, as the Rams relocated to Los Angeles the following season.
Bush, who retired from the NFL in 2017 and now works as an NFL Network analyst, told the Post-Dispatch he’s “very happy” with the verdict, and his tweet Tuesday night seemed to match that mood.
The 33-year-old won’t see all of the money, though — Missouri law requires 50 percent of the punitive damages be sent to the state’s Tort Victims’ Compensation Fund.
