Floyd Little retired from his Hall of Fame career with the Denver Broncos, with loyal fans behind him – and a lifetime of aches and pains ahead.

In 2008 Little took advantage of California law’s best kept secrets that allows professional athletes to file worker’s compensation claims in the state even if they have never played for a California-based team.

Little argued that his football career had left him with unrelenting aches and pains stemming from two broken collar bones, broken ribs, and multiple concussions during his football career.

Now, Little and a handful of other past Broncos have made worker’s compensation claims against the team for amounts over $100,000.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Colorado by St. Paul Fire & Marine Insurance, targets PDB Sports, Ltd., which does business under the Broncos name

St. Paul dealt with insurance for Rocky Mountain Empire Sports, which allocated all its interests to PDB around 1981, according to the suit. However, St. Paul insists that the policies only concerned employees in New Mexico and didn’t include football players.
The insurer says injuries that happened in California are not covered by the policies and that some of the alleged injuries occurred outside the covered periods.

St. Paul says the team was required to report payroll to the insurer but failed to do so. St. Paul Fire and Marine is hoping the suit will prompt a federal judge to declare the company doesn’t have to pay.

Meanwhile, three years after Little filed, he is still waiting on his claim to be resolved. He told the Denver Post he has not received any updates on his claim in quite a while.