Reggie Bush’s slip on the ‘concrete ring of death’ will cost the Rams $12.5 million

Bush injured himself on exposed concrete at the Edward Jones Dome in 2015, and a St. Louis jury has found in his favor.

A St. Louis jury has awarded former NFL running back Reggie Bush $12.5 million in damages, to be paid by the Los Angeles Rams for an injury Bush sustained at the team’s former stadium in 2015, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Bush suffered a season-ending knee injury in a game at the Edward Jones Dome between the then-St. Louis Rams and San Francisco 49ers. Bush was pushed out of bounds, then slipped and fell on a strip of exposed concrete well behind the visiting team’s bench. The lawsuit called that strip a “concrete ring of death.”

The running back filed a lawsuit in 2016, claiming that the Rams were negligent in keeping that ring of concrete exposed. Given the speeds at play in the NFL, traveling that far (about 35 feet, according to the Post-Dispatch) shouldn’t be unexpected by any team.

Apparently, the jury agreed, because they awarded Bush $4.95 million in compensatory damages and another $7.5 million in punitive damages, finding the Rams organization 100 percent liable for the incident. Not long after Bush’s injury, the Rams covered the exposed concrete with rubber.

“I’m very happy with the verdict,” Bush said after the victory, via the Post-Dispatch. “The people spoke and decided very fairly.”

Originally, Bush had also sued the public agencies that technically own and operate the stadium, but they were dismissed from the suit after they successfully argued that the Rams organization had control of operations at the stadium on game days.

Bush’s primary claim was that the MCL injury he sustained hurt his future earning potential. He played one year with the Buffalo Bills the following season, and announced his retirement in 2017. Bush claimed throughout the process that the entire lawsuit was about player safety.