Rener Gracie appears to have taken some of the criticism recently directed at him on board, as he has now decided to donate $100,000 that he received as payment for his expert witness testimony in a landmark BJJ injury lawsuit to charity instead. News broke recently that a student who was paralyzed in class received a $46 million judgement from a lawsuit he made against the gym that the incident happened at and naturally, it shocked a lot of people. There were plenty of questions firing around from all directions and a lot of information began to surface about the incident and accompanying trial, including leaked footage of the injury occurring and Rener’s involvement as an expert witness for the plaintiff.
Rener attracted a lot of criticism for his involvement in the case, and he recently shared a video to explain his thoughts on the accident itself and the cause of the injury. Now Rener Gracie has decided to address another issue that’s come up during the aftermath of this trial, namely the payment of over $100,000 he received for his testimony, and he announced that he will be donating it to charity instead:
“I can see there are a lot of people in the jiu-jitsu community who are concerned, scared, and feel strongly about the implications of the recent ruling. We are working on creating accessible free content to help guide jiu-jitsu school owners on steps they can take to mitigate their risks, and help to explain how to not only avoid similar tragedies, but also how they can reduce exposure should an accident occur on their watch (as minor injuries will inevitably occur, and have for us as well). Regarding compensation, expert witnesses get compensated for their time and expertise, regardless of outcome. This was the case for me, as well as for the expert witness for the defendant.
“When this case was first brought to me, after reviewing the footage and better understanding the circumstances, and then learning that the student didn’t get a dime from the defendant’s insurance company to cover his life-changing injury, I agreed to become involved in the case. I gave the attorneys an hourly rate based how I value my limited time as someone with a family and three businesses. Over the course of nearly two years I was paid over $100k for my time.”
“While I gave a lot of time, thought, and energy to this case, it is clear the compensation I received has become a distraction from the lessons we can learn from this tragedy and the discussion of upholding the standard of care that jiu-jitsu students deserve. For this reason, and because I have been moved and inspired by Jack’s (Greener) resilience throughout this tragedy, I’ll be donating $100k to Spinal Cord Injury Network International, whose mission is to help individuals with Spinal Cord Injury/Disorder (SCI) triumph over their life-altering injuries.”
Rener Gracie announced his decision to donate $100k of the payment he received to give witness testimony in the BJJ injury lawsuit in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
