DOJ Pressed On Gender Care Ban In Federal HIV Program

By Dan McKay

A Massachusetts federal judge on Wednesday skeptically questioned the Trump administration's authority to prohibit doctors from providing gender-affirming care as part of a longstanding, federally funded HIV program.

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Wash. Judge Blocks Ed. Dept. Mental Health Grant Cuts

By Gianna Ferrarin

A Washington federal judge preliminarily enjoined the U.S. Education Department from terminating up to $1 billion in K–12 mental health grants serving 15 states, finding states provided sufficient evidence that the agency was planning to unlawfully cut those grants.

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Blue Shield Still Facing Therapy 'Ghost Network' Suit

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge ruled Wednesday that Blue Shield of California must face the majority of claims brought in subscribers' proposed class action alleging the insurer maintained a "ghost network" of mental-health providers that didn't exist or accept new patients, saying the suit adequately claims contract terms were not met.

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'Hanging In There' Doesn't Ax Disability Claim, 9th Circ. Says

By Lauren Berg

"Hanging in there" and working through the pain of a worsening disability is not a reason to reject the testimony of someone seeking Social Security benefits, the Ninth Circuit ruled Wednesday.

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Brief

Nursing Facility Operator To Pay $1M In FCA Settlement

By Julie Manganis

The operators of a group of skilled nursing facilities in Massachusetts will pay $1 million to settle allegations that they overbilled Medicare and Medicaid by inflating the level of care patients needed, federal and state prosecutors announced Wednesday.

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Colo. Judge Declines To Sanction Hospital In Gender Care Suit

By Rachel Konieczny

Children's Hospital Colorado properly complied with an injunction prohibiting it from refusing to provide medically necessary gender-affirming care to transgender youth patients, a state judge ruled, rejecting a request by a class of patients to hold the hospital in contempt.

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Vein Tech Maker Escapes Suit Over DOJ Kickback Probe

By Katryna Perera

A New York federal judge has tossed, for now, a proposed investor class action alleging that vein disease device maker Inari Medical Inc.'s share price fell after it disclosed an investigation into its compliance with federal anti-kickback laws, finding the suit does not plausibly show Inari was paying healthcare providers unlawful kickbacks, among other things.

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Fla. Woman Gets $7.6M In Leg Amputation Med Mal Suit

By Mike Curley

A Florida jury has awarded a woman $7.6 million after finding that her doctors were negligent and failed to recognize a medical emergency threatening her leg, resulting in its amputation.

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Google MDL Coverage Suit Belongs In Calif., Del. Judge Rules

By Dorothy Atkins

A Delaware state judge has stayed a lawsuit by American International Group subsidiaries seeking a declaration that they're not liable for covering Google's defense costs tied to social-media addiction multidistrict litigation, finding the parties must litigate in California where Google filed its own coverage suit weeks before the insurers.

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Medicare Brokers Say Feds Won't Identify Alleged False Claims

By Julie Manganis

A group of insurance companies and brokers accused in a False Claims Act case of colluding to steer Medicare recipients to certain Medicare Advantage plans said Tuesday that the federal government has refused to provide specifics of the allegations.

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Motley Rice Partner Tapped For Opioid Case Co-Lead Counsel

By Emily Field

The Ohio federal judge overseeing multidistrict opioid litigation appointed on Wednesday Donald Migliori, a managing partner at Motley Rice LLC, as co-lead counsel in the wake of the death of the firm's co-founder Joe Rice, who had served in the position for the past eight years.

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Patients Drop Fertility Fraud Suits Against Yale Medical School

By Brian Steele

Five plaintiffs have dropped two related court actions against Yale School of Medicine, Yale New Haven Hospital and the estate of a Connecticut doctor accused of fraudulently using his own sperm to inseminate fertility patients, state court records show.

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Healthcare Co. Trims But Can't Escape Retirement Plan Suit

By Patrick Hoff

Nonprofit healthcare system Virtua Health can't avoid a proposed class action alleging its 401(k) plan unlawfully offered a risky and underperforming investment option that provided excessive compensation to plan service providers, a New Jersey federal judge ruled.

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NJ Bias Case Judge Won't Nix Hospital's NDA Rule Yet

By George Woolston

A New Jersey state judge said it was too early to strike down a hospital's nondisclosure agreement provision for internal investigations in a former director's suit alleging she was the target of a retaliatory investigation.

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NM County Faces Sanctions Over Protected Disclosures

By Danielle Ferguson

A New Mexico federal judge said a county violated a protective order by disclosing information from confidential documents in a state court malpractice suit, saying the county's defense of "we own the documents and we can do what we want with them" did not defeat the order's restriction on the materials.

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Vividion Investor Wants IP Suit Over $2B Bayer Deal Revived

By Jarek Rutz

CHP III LP urged the Delaware Supreme Court on Wednesday to revive its suit over allegedly diverted intellectual property in Vividion Therapeutics Inc.'s $2 billion sale to Bayer Corp., while the defendants argued the investor is trying to turn a corporate injury into a direct stockholder claim that did not survive the merger.

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Calif. Appeals Court Revives Antitrust Suit Against Claritev

By Rae Ann Varona

A California state appeals court held in a published opinion that health insurer reimbursements for services are prices that, if fixed or tampered with, are subject to antitrust scrutiny, reviving a lawsuit that accused MultiPlan Corp. of violating antitrust law through pricing tools used by health insurance providers.

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Organ Network Says Kidney Race Bias Claims Can't Proceed

By Rachel Riley

The United Network for Organ Sharing is seeking to exit a proposed class action claiming it prolonged wait times for Black patients seeking kidney transplants by encouraging hospitals to use a flawed race-based adjustment when measuring kidney function, saying the network's policy was "silent" as to how such scores were calculated.

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Genesis Healthcare Reports Last-Minute Facility Sale Snags

By Rick Archer

Genesis Healthcare and the winning bidder for its 175 nursing homes told a Texas bankruptcy judge Wednesday they have fallen into a disagreement over $100 million of the $1 billion purchase price with the deadline to close the sale a week away.

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Nixon Peabody Adds Ex-State Counsel To SF Office

By James Boyle

A former chief counsel for California's Department of Aging has moved his healthcare practice to Nixon Peabody's San Francisco office after more than two years with Epstein Becker & Green PC.

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Teva, Wyeth Show How Claimed Advances Shape Enablement

Two recent Federal Circuit decisions involving method-of-treatment claims — Teva v. Eli Lilly and Wyeth v. AstraZeneca — reached opposite enablement outcomes from strikingly similar procedural postures, but a closer comparison of the cases reveals a three-step framework for understanding the court's reasoning, says Kendall Gurule at Polsinelli.

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Tracking Trends In State-Level Regulatory Enforcement

State-level enforcement now increasingly involves antitrust, artificial intelligence and data privacy issues, and the key for organizations to reducing risk is having the ability to respond across governance, public affairs, discovery and remediation in multiple states simultaneously, say consultants at FTI Consulting.

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Opinion

Calif. Bill Goes Too Far In Trying To Regulate Attorney AI Use

California’s first-in-the-nation act regulating how attorneys and arbitrators use generative artificial intelligence will likely soon become law, but read broadly, the provisions may dissuade lawyers from employing AI at all, thereby depriving them of key work tools, says Joshua Wurtzel at Schlam Stone.

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Tarter Krinsky Data Breach May Have Affected Health Info

By Andrea Keckley

Tarter Krinsky & Drogin LLP said in a letter this month that a data breach last year may have compromised protected health information the firm possessed due to its representation of an unnamed healthcare provider.

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'I'm Tired Of This': Judge Scolds Atty In Romantasy Suit

By Theresa Schliep

A New York federal judge has reprimanded counsel for a writer in a failed copyright infringement lawsuit over the "Crave" book series, insisting the plaintiff answer all questions in a deposition over attorney fees and writing that she was "tired of this" and "indeed being jerked around."

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Goldstein Not Leaving Prison Any Time Soon, 4th Circ. Rules

By Jeff Overley

The Fourth Circuit balked late Wednesday at freeing Tom Goldstein from prison as he fights felony convictions, and it rejected fast-track review of the renowned appellate advocate's trial, indicating he'll likely spend substantial time behind bars even if his appeal succeeds.

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Analysis

Newman's Roadblocks Guide Judicial Conduct Reform Bill

By Dani Kass

The Judicial Conduct and Disability Act has worked well in allowing the judicial branch to govern itself for nearly 50 years, but the ongoing suspension of Federal Circuit Judge Pauline Newman has exposed gaps that could be addressed with newly introduced legislation, attorneys say.

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Senate Confirms Abbott Aide To Texas Federal Bench

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 50-47, along party lines, on Wednesday to confirm Angela Colmenero, deputy chief of staff to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, to serve on the Southern District of Texas.

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Fed. Panel At Standstill Over ABA Law School Accreditor Role

By Emma Cueto

A key U.S. Department of Education committee deadlocked Wednesday over whether the American Bar Association council responsible for approving law schools should continue as a federally recognized accreditor, tabling the issue until Thursday after different proposals failed to win majority support.

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