Former Cleveland Browns wide receiver David Bell filed a $300 million medical malpractice lawsuit on Thursday, alleging unnecessary surgery nearly killed him and ended his NFL career.
Bell was selected by the Browns in the third round of the 2022 NFL Draft after playing college football for the Purdue Boilermakers. In three seasons with Cleveland, he played in 32 games, catching 41 passes for 408 yards and 3 touchdowns.
He suffered a hip injury in Week 2 of the 2024 season and missed the rest of the season. In October 2025, David Bell announced his retirement, writing on social media that he “was blindsided by an off-field injury that was beyond my control, which put my football future in jeopardy. After consulting with medical experts and praying, I accept that continuing to play football would literally risk life and limb.”
David Bell accuses the defendants of operating a ‘financial scheme’
Bell is now suing Jefferson Health System and fourteen other parties, seeking damages of more than $300 million. He alleges that a “bogus MRI interpretation” was used to deceive him into having core muscle surgery. The surgery severely damaged his femoral artery, necessitating life-saving emergency treatment.
David Bell’s attorneys claim that the defendants in the lawsuit “participated in a financial scheme that induced Bell to undergo surgery based on misrepresented pelvic MRI findings.”
“Tragically, Bell awoke from surgery to learn that he had narrowly escaped death due to a vascular injury caused by Defendant Meyers slicing through his femoral artery, necessitating emergency ambulance transport to Thomas Jefferson Hospital and requiring emergency vascular reconstruction,” The Athletic reports the lawsuit claims.
David Bell’s attorneys claim the defendants made ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’
“We undertook a year-long investigation into this matter in which a number of truly world-leading surgeons and radiologists examined the matter, with many of them doing so on a no-fee basis,” David Bell’s lead attorney, Brad Sohn, said in a statement.
“The findings were nothing short of astonishing and give us a high degree of confidence that we can prove that hundreds of millions of dollars going to Dr. Meyers, Dr. Zoga, Jefferson, and the Vincera Institute to perform these surgeries were prioritized over the basic medical principle of First Do No Harm, as we have alleged in the complaint.”
Sohn added on social media that the lawsuit does not involve the Cleveland Browns, and the team has, in fact, “only been a source of support.”