By James Caldwell, PWTorch assistant editor

Former WWF star Billy Jack Haynes filed a lawsuit against WWE in federal court in Oregon this week, reports the Portland Tribune.

Haynes's main complaint in the lawsuit dated Thursday, October 23 is that WWE engaged in “egregious mistreatment of its wrestlers for its own benefit, as well as its concealment and denial of medical research and evidence concerning traumatic brain injuries suffered by WWE wrestlers.”

Haynes, who filed the suit in Portland's U.S. District Court, is seeking a remedy for himself, as well as for past WWF/E wrestlers who he alleges suffered injuries or put their health at risk while wrestling for WWE and promoter Vince McMahon. The suit says the number of qualifying wrestlers could be "500 people."

For Haynes, himself, the lawsuit states: “As a result of the head trauma he sustained while wrestling in WWE, Haynes suffers from depression and exhibits symptoms of dementia."

Haynes was hospitalized in March 2013 after reportedly suffering an aortic aneurysm. He also showed signs of liver and kidney issues.

In the suit, Haynes claims to have had "at least 15 concussions" and "numerous other injuries" wrestling on WWE"s full-time schedule in the mid-1980s.

For the general population of wrestlers, Haynes is seeking a remedy where WWE would be required to create a "trust fund, in an amount to be determined, to pay for the medical monitoring of all wrestlers subjected to checks and hits, as frequently as determined to be medically necessary, as well as to pay to develop and research other methods by which the risk of those affected can be reduced.”

This is not Haynes's first time to take a public stance against WWE. In 1992, Haynes conducted a series of interviews under the general topic of alleged steroid and drug use by top star Hulk Hogan.

In one high-profile interview with The Oregonian newspaper, Haynes admitted to using steroids and drugs until experiencing a major health scare in the late 1980s. He alleged that trying to "get clean" while still on WWE's full-time schedule led to depression, which he identified in the lawsuit more than 25 years later. An excerpt from an interview with The Oregonian published March 12, 1992:

"Haynes said a scare in 1987 made him "come clean"' even from pain pills. "My gym in Oregon City had been open a month, and I had two broken fingers, but Vince wouldn't give me time off.'' He was taking powerful pain pills to combat the pain when he suffered a violent reaction while on an airplane flight from Detroit to Miami.

"They made an emergency stop in Charlotte, N.C., and I woke up in a hospital,'' he said. "It all pertained to the codeine I was taking. I have been clean since. I don't even drink.'' Haynes said he has been deeply depressed since an ill-fated venture as a promoter and gym owner in 1988 bankrupted him.

"I lost everything - my family, my house, everything. I hit the very bottom,'' he said.

As for the present, no court date has been set yet for Haynes's case. WWE did not comment on the suit, according to the Portland Tribune.

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