The family of deceased professional football player Aaron Hernandez filed a $20 million lawsuit against the National Football League and the New England Patriots in Boston federal court, but there's a chance the case may end up before the federal judge in Pennsylvania who is overseeing a nearly $1 billion settlement already in the works aimed at compensating former players for their brain injuries.

And that's just one of several hurdles attorneys involved in class action and ongoing concussion-related litigation said the lawsuit may face.

Hernandez's fiancee, Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez, acting as guardian for their daughter Avielle Hernandez, filed the lawsuit Sept. 21 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, alleging the NFL and the Patriots knowingly exposed the former tight end to repeated head injuries, which led him to develop chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE—a condition linked to violent behavior and suicide. Hernandez, who played professional football between 2010 and 2013, was convicted of murder in 2015 and committed suicide while in prison in April 2017.