More Healthcare Coverage
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March 04, 2025
Colo. Justices Won't Review Hospital Tax Classification Suit
The Colorado Supreme Court declined to review an appeals court ruling finding that a rehabilitation hospital should be classified as a commercial property for tax purposes because it was predominantly designed for its services and not for residency.
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March 03, 2025
Credit Bureaus Look To Duck Renewed Medical Debt Claims
Equifax, Experian and TransUnion asked a California federal judge Monday to toss an updated case accusing the credit reporting agencies of violating antitrust law by agreeing to exclude medical debt under $500 from consumer credit reports.
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March 03, 2025
Insurer Doesn't Owe Spine Surgery Suit Defense, Judge Says
An insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify an orthopedic treatment center or one of its surgeons in a suit over a botched spine surgery, a Georgia federal court ruled Monday, saying the policy bars coverage for claims reported to another insurer before its effective date.
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March 03, 2025
Adult Day Care Owner Must Pay $1.5M For Medicare Fraud
The former owner of a Michigan adult day care facility was sentenced Monday to spend one year in prison and pay about $1.5 million in restitution for submitting $3.4 million in fraudulent bills to Medicare for psychotherapy services that were either unnecessary or not provided by qualified professionals.
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March 03, 2025
Oddities Shop Owner Says Collecting Body Parts Not Criminal
A woman accused of taking part in an interstate ring buying and selling human remains allegedly stolen by the former director of Harvard University's morgue asked a federal judge on Monday to dismiss an indictment against her, arguing that charges of transporting stolen goods don't apply to body parts.
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March 03, 2025
Justices Decline Data Breach Suit Against SC Medical Center
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a Fourth Circuit decision that a health center cannot use federal immunity as a shield against a data breach lawsuit even though it received public funds, despite the company's warning that the ruling has created a circuit split.
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February 27, 2025
USAA, Mich. Clinics Resolve Billing Fraud Row
United Services Automobile Association said Wednesday that it has resolved its claims against physical therapy providers the insurer alleges solicited car crash victims to refer and bill them for unnecessary medical care.
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February 26, 2025
Judge Says VA Could Exclude $14B Consulting Deal Bid
A Court of Federal Claims judge has rejected a protest over a company's exclusion from a $14 billion multiaward consulting contract, saying the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs appropriately determined the firm wasn't qualified for the deal.
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February 25, 2025
San Francisco Must Face Airline Group's Suit Over Health Law
San Francisco lost its bid to escape an airline industry group's challenge to a healthcare ordinance Tuesday, with a California federal judge ruling that the city and county must face claims that the Healthy Airport Ordinance is preempted by three federal statutes.
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February 25, 2025
Wage-Fixing Jury Should Hear Of DOJ Pivot, Exec Says
A nursing executive headed for trial next month on wage-fixing charges has urged a Nevada federal judge to let the jury hear that before 2016 the Justice Department didn't view such conduct as criminal, in the lone remaining test of the DOJ's labor antitrust enforcement initiative.
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February 24, 2025
Fed. Circ. Shouldn't Assume Doctors Read Labels, Profs Say
The Federal Circuit has been reviewing whether generic-drug companies induce infringement of their limited-use drugs based on a misunderstanding of how prescribing physicians do their job, law professors from Illinois and Pennsylvania have argued in a new paper.
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February 24, 2025
Patent Eligibility Appeals 'Will Not Go Away,' Justices Told
Another plea to hear a patent eligibility case has been lodged at the U.S. Supreme Court, this time in an amicus brief from the owner of two invalidated patents covering medical machinery that warned "the problem will not go away. The problem will get worse and worse."
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February 24, 2025
GAO Sinks Protest Over Army Corps Solicitation Amendment
The U.S. Government Accountability Office has said the Army Corps of Engineers rightly changed a solicitation to remove the requirement that solicitors attach a project labor agreement, denying a construction contractor's protest of the change.
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February 24, 2025
Shooting Victim Blames Nursing Home For Lack Of Security
A Pennsylvania man who was robbed and shot while visiting his brother at a Pittsburgh nursing home last November has filed a lawsuit against the facility in state court, claiming the company falsely represented that it was safe and secure.
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February 20, 2025
Trump Trans Edicts Will Cause More Teen Suicides, States Say
Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Minnesota argued Wednesday for a court order halting President Donald Trump's executive orders targeting federal funding for gender-affirming care for young people, saying the edicts are unconstitutional and have "unleashed unbridled fear and irreparable harms."
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February 20, 2025
Nootropics Co. Can't Push Nurse's Suit To Arbitration
Makers of the Thesis brand of supplements can't push into arbitration a former U.S. Army nurse's lawsuit claiming its nootropics, sometimes called "smart drugs," secretly contained amphetamines, which caused her to fail a drug test and be booted from the military, a Washington federal judge has ruled.
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February 20, 2025
Ex-Opioid CEO's Billing Spat With Trial Atty Lands In Court
A Manhattan federal judge teed up a briefing schedule Thursday after a fight over expenses erupted between convicted former opioid CEO Laurence Doud and the lawyer who represented him at his criminal trial, who says Doud still owes $150,000.
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February 19, 2025
Contractors' Group Asks DC Judge To Halt Gutting Of USAID
A group representing U.S. citizen personal services contractors working for the U.S. Agency for International Development is the latest to ask a federal judge to step in and block the Trump administration's push to gut the agency and its operations.
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February 19, 2025
Colorado Joins Fight Against Trump Trans Health Order
Colorado on Wednesday joined Washington and two other states opposing President Donald Trump's executive order targeting federal funding for gender-affirming care for people younger than 19, in an amended complaint that noted Colorado was the first state to include gender-affirming care among essential health benefits.
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February 18, 2025
Policyholders Win Bid To Preserve Records For Antitrust Suit
Insurance policyholders who accused Hartford HealthCare Corp. of violating antitrust and unfair trade practices in a Connecticut state court can intervene in a federal court lawsuit with similar claims against the hospital network to preserve records for their class action, a federal district judge has ruled a month after the federal suit settled.
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February 13, 2025
Amtrak Worker Admits Role In $11M Healthcare Fraud
An Amtrak employee has pled guilty in Newark federal court in New Jersey to conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud as part of a scheme that cost Amtrak $11 million, acting U.S. Attorney Vikas Khanna announced.
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February 12, 2025
Labcorp Can't Score New Trial After $384M Patent Loss
Clinical lab giant Labcorp has failed to land a new trial in front of U.S. District Judge Alan Albright after a $384.4 million patent infringement judgment against it in a case over a method for testing for genetic disorders during pregnancy.
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February 12, 2025
Paraquat Plaintiffs Urge 7th Circ. To Revive MDL Suits
Four plaintiffs who were set for bellwether trials in multidistrict litigation targeting the herbicide paraquat argued Wednesday that the Seventh Circuit should unwind their summary judgment losses because the district court's ruling was based on "core misunderstandings" about their expert's evidentiary requirements.
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February 12, 2025
Boston's Opioid Damages Claims Tossed As Too Late
Boston waited too long to sue a group of drug benefits intermediaries over their alleged roles in the opioid crisis, a Massachusetts federal judge said in dismissing the city's complaint Tuesday.
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February 12, 2025
Hospital Says It Should've Had Immunity In 'Maya' Case
Johns Hopkins All Children's Hospital told a Florida appeals court Wednesday that the lower court "profoundly misconstrued" immunity Florida law grants to those who report suspicions of child abuse, which allowed a jury to award $261 million to Maya Kowalski, the subject of a Netflix documentary, for her mother's suicide.
Expert Analysis
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Lawyers With Disabilities Are Seeking Equity, Not Pity
Attorneys living with disabilities face extra challenges — including the need for special accommodations, the fear of stigmatization and the risk of being tokenized — but if given equitable opportunities, they can still rise to the top of their field, says Kate Reder Sheikh, a former attorney and legal recruiter at Major Lindsey & Africa.
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Judicial Committee Best Venue For Litigation Funding Rules
The Advisory Committee on Civil Rules' recent decision to consider developing a rule for litigation funding disclosure is a welcome development, ensuring that the result will be the product of a thorough, inclusive and deliberative process that appropriately balances all interests, says Stewart Ackerly at Statera Capital.
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The Strategic Advantages Of Appointing A Law Firm CEO
The impact on law firms of the recent CrowdStrike outage underscores that the business of law is no longer merely about providing supplemental support for legal practice — and helps explain why some law firms are appointing dedicated, full-time CEOs to navigate the challenges of the modern legal landscape, says Jennifer Johnson at Calibrate Strategies.
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Webuild Ruling Complicates Arb. Award Enforcement In US
A Delaware federal court's recent decision in Sociedad Concesionaria Metropolitana de Salud v. Webuild, if read literally, could undercut the United States' image as a proarbitration jurisdiction by complicating creditors' efforts to enforce awards against property in this country, says Jeff Newton at Omni Bridgeway.
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Tobacco Surcharge Suits Spotlight Wellness Reg Compliance
A mounting wave of tobacco-user surcharge litigation against employee benefit plans highlights compliance challenges associated with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act wellness regulations, and reminds plan sponsors to ask existential questions about the utility of their wellness programs, say Finn Pressly and Lesley Wolf at Ballard Spahr.
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The Pop Culture Docket: Justice Lebovits On Gilbert And Sullivan
Characters in the 19th century comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan break the rules of good lawyering by shamelessly throwing responsible critical thought to the wind, providing hilarious lessons for lawyers and judges on how to avoid a surfeit of traps and tribulations, say acting New York Supreme Court Justice Gerald Lebovits and law student Tara Scown.
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State Of The States' AI Legal Ethics Landscape
Over the past year, several state bar associations, as well as the American Bar Association, have released guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, all of which share overarching themes and some nuanced differences, say Eric Pacifici and Kevin Henderson at SMB Law Group.
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8 Childhood Lessons That Can Help You Be A Better Attorney
A new school year is underway, marking a fitting time for attorneys to reflect on some fundamental life lessons from early childhood that offer a framework for problems that no legal textbook can solve, say Chris Gismondi and Chris Campbell at DLA Piper.
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This Election, We Need To Talk About Court Process
In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has markedly transformed judicial processes — from summary judgment standards to notice pleadings — which has, in turn, affected individuals’ substantive rights, and we need to consider how the upcoming presidential election may continue this pattern, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.
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Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys
Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.
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Litigation Inspiration: Honoring Your Learned Profession
About 30,000 people who took the bar exam in July will learn they passed this fall, marking a fitting time for all attorneys to remember that they are members in a specialty club of learned professionals — and the more they can keep this in mind, the more benefits they will see, says Bennett Rawicki at Hilgers Graben.
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AI May Limit Key Learning Opportunities For Young Attorneys
The thing that’s so powerful about artificial intelligence is also what’s most scary about it — its ability to detect patterns may curtail young attorneys’ chance to practice the lower-level work of managing cases, preventing them from ever honing the pattern recognition skills that undergird creative lawyering, says Sarah Murray at Trialcraft.
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Why Now Is The Time For Law Firms To Hire Lateral Partners
Partner and associate mobility data from the second quarter of this year suggest that there's never been a better time in recent years for law firms to hire lateral candidates, particularly experienced partners — though this necessitates an understanding of potential red flags, say Julie Henson and Greg Hamman at Decipher Investigative Intelligence.