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May 16, 2024
Biden Admin Proposes To Loosen Restrictions On Marijuana
President Joe Biden on Thursday announced that his administration has formally recommended relaxing restrictions on marijuana, marking the most significant federal policy shift on cannabis since the drug was criminalized more than 50 years ago.
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May 16, 2024
Top Linklaters Attys See PE Rebound In Run-Up To Elections
After a subtle uptick in private equity deal values in the first quarter, the global chair of Linklaters LLP's corporate department in New York, George Casey, and one of its top PE dealmakers in London, Alex Woodward, believe the pace of transactions is picking up and the market is primed for a comeback.
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May 16, 2024
Conn. Medicaid Fraudster Gets 27 Months Over $1.6M Scheme
A Connecticut psychologist who pled guilty to filing $1.6 million in false claims to his state's Medicaid system has been sentenced to 27 months in prison, after the government sought 37 months and the fraudster himself had argued for no prison time at all.
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May 15, 2024
Blackbaud Dodges Data Breach Victims' Class Cert. Bid
A South Carolina federal judge has refused to certify several proposed classes consisting of roughly 1.5 billion patients, donors and other individuals whose personal information was allegedly swept up in a 2020 ransomware attack on software provider Blackbaud Inc., finding that the plaintiffs had failed to show that class members could be easily identified.
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May 15, 2024
UnitedHealth Concealed DOJ Merger Investigation, Suit Says
UnitedHealth Group has been hit with a proposed shareholder class action alleging that it failed to disclose that the U.S. Department of Justice had reopened an antitrust investigation into the health insurance giant following its acquisition of a healthcare data company, and that top executives had sold more than $120 million of shares knowing about the investigation before a news report revealed it to the public.
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May 15, 2024
High Court Urged To Take Up Hospital Construction Feud
A pair of arbitration scholars are urging the U.S. Supreme Court to finally resolve whether parties that agree to certain arbitral rules have also agreed to delegate jurisdictional questions to the arbitrator, in a case that centers on a $180 million project to expand a Mississippi childrens' hospital.
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May 15, 2024
Feds Urge Prison For Convicted Baby Formula Fraudster
Urging the judge to communicate the gravity of white collar crime, federal prosecutors in New York asked Wednesday that a Staten Island man get at least 2.25 years in prison after he pled guilty to forging baby formula prescriptions as part of a scheme to defraud insurers of $1.9 million.
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May 15, 2024
Anti-Trans Groups Fail To Block Wash. Youth Shelter Law
A federal judge on Wednesday threw out a lawsuit filed by two anti-transgender groups challenging a Washington state law intended to ensure shelter for teens seeking gender-affirming care or reproductive health services, ruling that speculating on possible injury was not enough to clear a standing hurdle.
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May 15, 2024
Worker Updates Boot-Up Suit After Judge Axes State Claims
A former call center worker on Tuesday lodged an amended class action complaint seeking boot-up time wages from a home healthcare company, raising only federal claims after a Michigan federal judge earlier this year stripped state law allegations from the suit.
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May 15, 2024
Michigan Can't Shake Lawsuit Over Prison's Scabies Outbreak
The director of the Michigan Department of Corrections and other high-ranking officials must face claims that they allowed an outbreak of scabies in a women's prison to go untreated for years, a federal judge has ruled.
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May 15, 2024
Data On Harm Intrigues Pa. Justices In Hospital Closure Spat
While tasked with considering how much deference appellate panels must give trial courts in matters involving preliminary injunctions, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday was equally curious about whether one such injunction needed to be supported by data showing that a hospital's closure would irrevocably hurt a Delaware County community.
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May 15, 2024
Anthem Blue Cross Owes $3.8M For COVID Tests, Lab Says
Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Connecticut should be forced to pay nearly $3.8 million for medical laboratory work, including COVID-19 tests, that the insurer either denied, underpaid or failed to acknowledge, according to a federal lawsuit by a New Jersey-based company with facilities in Pennsylvania.
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May 15, 2024
Staffing Co. Settles Claims It Spurned Immigrant's Work Docs
A medical staffing company agreed to improve employee anti-discrimination training to resolve allegations that it fired an immigrant employee, after refusing to accept valid evidence that she could work in the U.S., the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.
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May 15, 2024
Feds Push To Bar Fox Rothschild Atty's Testimony In Retrial
In a renewed bid, the government has urged a New Jersey federal court to bar a Fox Rothschild LLP partner from testifying as an expert witness in the retrial of a securities fraud case that ended in a dramatic mistrial, arguing that his testimony would constitute an irrelevant and an improper bid to bolster the defense.
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May 15, 2024
Pet Telehealth Startup Canned Vet After Bite Injury, Suit Says
A Massachusetts veterinarian says she was lured to a mobile pet care startup but replaced months later by a younger vet after she claimed workers' compensation for a dog bite suffered on the job.
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May 15, 2024
Minn. Suit Against Clinic Over Sex Abuse By Psychiatrist Fails
A Minnesota appeals court has found that a woman can't pursue vicarious liability claims against a clinic for sexual abuse by one of the psychiatrists working there, saying she released those claims when she entered a settlement with the psychiatrist.
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May 15, 2024
Senators Release 'Road Map' For Crafting Federal AI Policy
A bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday laid out a "road map" for artificial intelligence policy that calls for increased AI innovation funding, testing of potential harms posed by AI and consideration of the technology's workforce implications.
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May 14, 2024
RFK Jr. Fights Uphill To Get Vax Censorship Block At 9th Circ.
A Ninth Circuit panel appeared skeptical Tuesday of granting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. an injunction in his case alleging Google violated his First Amendment rights by removing certain YouTube videos doubting the safety of the COVID-19 vaccines, with two judges saying his arguments lack evidence.
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May 14, 2024
Hospitals Liable For Failing To Admit Killer, Pa. Justices Told
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court was reminded Tuesday, during oral arguments over whether someone can be officially treated at a hospital without filling out an application, that the case before them concerned a man who killed his girlfriend after he was turned away despite claiming homicidal and suicidal impulses.
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May 14, 2024
Mo. Court Says Chiropractor Must Face Broken Ribs Suit
A Missouri appellate panel on Tuesday revived a suit accusing a chiropractor of negligently breaking a patient's ribs during a treatment session, saying the patient's two medical experts plausibly opined that the chiropractor used excessive force.
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May 14, 2024
The PREP Immunity Question Won't Be Decided Yet
The Federal Circuit opted Tuesday not to say whether a 2005 public health law provides any legal immunity in a patent dispute between rival manufacturers of COVID-19 test swabs, leaving the thorny question unanswered.
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May 14, 2024
Holland Adds Healthcare Transactions Partner In Chicago
Holland & Knight on Tuesday announced the arrival of attorney John Saran on its healthcare transactions team, who joins after nine years at Ropes & Gray LLP.
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May 14, 2024
Ind. Panel Agrees Hospital Can't Be Liable If Doctors Aren't
An Indiana appeals court has refused to reinstate a woman's vicarious liability claim against Indiana University Health North Hospital Inc. in a suit alleging its staff failed to properly diagnose her sepsis, holding the hospital can't be held liable for the conduct of agents who have already been released from liability.
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May 14, 2024
FTC Cleared To Sue Texas Anesthesia Co., But Not PE Firm
A Texas federal judge highlighted the limits of the Federal Trade Commission's ability to go after private equity firms accused of anti-competitive "roll-up" strategies, tossing antitrust claims against a private equity firm while preserving monopolization allegations against the anesthesia group the firm created.
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May 14, 2024
States Accuse EEOC Of 'Smuggling' Abortion Into PWFA Rule
Louisiana and Mississippi have sued the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission seeking to invalidate regulations implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, claiming the agency's stance that employers must provide workers accommodations if they get an abortion flouts U.S. Supreme Court precedent and the PWFA itself.
Expert Analysis
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What CRA Deadline Means For Biden Admin. Rulemaking
With the 2024 election rapidly approaching, the Biden administration must race to finalize proposed agency actions within the next few weeks, or be exposed to the chance that the following Congress will overturn the rules under the Congressional Review Act, say attorneys at Covington.
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Are Concessions In FDA's Lab-Developed Tests Rule Enough?
Although the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's new policy for laboratory-developed tests included major strategic concessions to help balance patient safety, access and diagnostic innovation, the new rule may well face significant legal challenges in court, say Dominick DiSabatino and Audrey Mercer at Sheppard Mullin.
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8 Questions To Ask Before Final CISA Breach Reporting Rule
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s recently proposed cyber incident reporting requirements for critical infrastructure entities represent the overall approach CISA will take in its final rule, so companies should be asking key compliance questions now and preparing for a more complicated reporting regime, say Arianna Evers and Shannon Mercer at WilmerHale.
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Series
Swimming Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Years of participation in swimming events, especially in the open water, have proven to be ideal preparation for appellate arguments in court — just as you must put your trust in the ocean when competing in a swim event, you must do the same with the judicial process, says John Kulewicz at Vorys.
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Mid-2024 FCA Enforcement And Litigation Trends To Watch
Reviewing notable False Claims Act trends and enforcement efforts in the last year and a half reveals that healthcare is a key enforcement priority for the U.S. Department of Justice, and the road ahead may bring clarification on Anti-Kickback Statute causation and willfulness standards, along with increased focus on private equity, cybersecurity and self-disclosure, say attorneys at Epstein Becker.
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A Recipe For Growth Equity Investing In A Slow M&A Market
Carl Marcellino at Ropes & Gray discusses the factors bolstering appetite for growth equity fundraising in a depressed M&A market, and walks through the deal terms and other ingredients that set growth equity transactions apart from bread-and-butter venture capital investing.
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What 100 Federal Cases Suggest About Changes To Chevron
With the U.S. Supreme Court poised to overturn or narrow its 40-year-old doctrine of Chevron deference, a review of 100 recent federal district court decisions confirm that changes to the Chevron framework will have broad ramifications — but the magnitude of the impact will depend on the details of the high court's ruling, say Kali Schellenberg and Jon Cochran at LeVan Stapleton.
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Notable Q1 Updates In Insurance Class Actions
Mark Johnson and Mathew Drocton at BakerHostetler discuss notable insurance class action decisions from the first quarter of the year ranging from salvage vehicle titling to rate discrimination based on premium-setting software.
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New Federal Bill Would Drastically Alter Privacy Landscape
While the recently introduced American Privacy Rights Act would eliminate the burdensome patchwork of state regulations, the proposed federal privacy law would also significantly expand compliance obligations and liability exposure for companies, especially those that rely on artificial intelligence or biometric technologies, says David Oberly at Baker Donelson.
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The Fed. Circ. In April: Hurdles Remain For Generics
The Federal Circuit’s recent Salix v. Norwich ruling — where Salix's brand-name drug's patents were invalidated — is a reminder to patent practitioners that invalidating a competitor's patents may not guarantee abbreviated new drug application approval, say Sean Murray and Jeremiah Helm at Knobbe Martens.
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Tylenol MDL Highlights Expert Admissibility Headaches
A New York federal court's decision to exclude all plaintiff experts in a multidistrict litigation concerning prenatal exposure to Tylenol highlights a number of expert testimony pitfalls that parties should avoid in product liability and mass tort matters, say Rand Brothers and Courtney Block at Winston & Strawn.
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PE-Healthcare Mergers Should Prepare For Challenges
State and federal regulators are increasingly imposing new requirements on healthcare transactions involving private equity partners, with mergers that would have drawn little scrutiny a few years ago now requiring a multijurisdictional risk analysis during the deal formation process, say attorneys at Stinson.
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Don't Use The Same Template For Every Client Alert
As the old marketing adage goes, consistency is key, but law firm style guides need consistency that contemplates variety when it comes to client alert formats, allowing attorneys to tailor alerts to best fit the audience and subject matter, says Jessica Kaplan at Legally Penned.
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Online Portal Helps Fortify Feds' Unfair Health Practices Fight
The Federal Trade Commission, U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recently launched an online portal where the public can report potentially unfair healthcare practices, effectively maximizing enforcers' abilities to police anti-competitive actions that can drive up healthcare costs and chill innovation, say attorneys at Seyfarth.
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Series
Walking With My Dog Makes Me A Better Lawyer
Thanks to my dog Birdie, I've learned that carving out an activity different from the practice of law — like daily outdoor walks that allow you to interact with new people — can contribute to professional success by boosting creativity and mental acuity, as well as expanding your social network, says Sarah Petrie at the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office.