More Healthcare Coverage

  • April 15, 2024

    Whistleblower Says Lab Co. Ran COVID-Testing Scheme

    A California-based diagnostics firm and its CEO have been hit with a whistleblower suit in Washington federal court by an ex-lab director who claims an affiliated company flouted regulatory standards and fraudulently billed government healthcare programs for COVID-19 tests on patients with private insurance.

  • April 15, 2024

    Geico Must Arbitrate Fraud Claims Against Chiropractors

    The Third Circuit held in a precedential opinion Monday that Geico must arbitrate three lawsuits accusing chiropractic practices of providing unnecessary services totaling $10 million, pointing to documentation indicating that disputes connected to personal injury protection benefits must be resolved out of court.

  • April 15, 2024

    Doc's NDAs Illegally Silenced Negative Reviews, Judge Says

    A Washington state plastic surgery practice illegally required patients to sign pretreatment nondisclosure agreements that threatened to punish them for posting negative online reviews, a Washington federal judge has determined.

  • April 15, 2024

    Claims Court Backs VA's Pick For Healthcare Conversion Deal

    The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has backed the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs' decision to tap a healthcare technology company to convert paper-based healthcare claims into electronic formats despite protests from two competitors for the work that allege the VA assigned them undeserved weaknesses.

  • April 15, 2024

    TTAB Sides With Pharma Co.'s Opposition To 'SageForth' TM

    The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has ruled in favor of biopharmaceutical company Sage Therapeutics Inc.' opposition to a psychological service provider's attempt to register "SageForth" as a trademark, saying the name is likely to cause confusion with Sage Therapeutics' treatments for postpartum depression.

  • April 15, 2024

    Pharmacy, Courier Co. Settle Driver's Classification Suit

    A delivery driver and a CVS-owned pharmacy and a logistics and courier firm told an Illinois federal court that they have reached a settlement resolving claims that the company misclassified workers as independent contractors and paid them neither minimum nor overtime premium wages. 

  • April 15, 2024

    Justices Won't Nix FDA Labeling Preemption For State Claims

    The Supreme Court on Monday let stand lower court findings that the unique authority of the federal Food and Drug Administration preempted and, therefore, justified dismissing a proposed class action that alleged a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary broke Massachusetts law by misbranding Lactaid drug products as dietary supplements.

  • April 15, 2024

    EEOC Maintains Broad Take On PWFA In Final Rule

    The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission unveiled its final rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act on Monday, largely adopting a sweeping pro-worker interpretation of the year-old law.

  • April 15, 2024

    Justices Won't Review ERISA Suit Over Heart Transplant

    The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to review the Fourth Circuit's decision only partially reviving a suit brought by the mother of a deceased airline worker whose employer refused to cover his heart transplant surgery until after his death.

  • April 12, 2024

    Wash. Hospital Workers Say Class Suits Are Mirror Images

    A group of healthcare workers urged a Washington state judge to find that their employer has violated the same wage laws that an affiliated hospital system was recently found liable for in a parallel case, contending at a Friday hearing that the two class actions ultimately target the same parent company.

  • April 12, 2024

    Mich. Hospital Must Face MedMal Suit Against Contract Doc

    A hospital will have to face claims related to the alleged medical malpractice of its ICU director, a contractor, because the hospital did not make it clear to a patient who died that the doctor was not one of its employees, a Michigan appellate panel has said.

  • April 12, 2024

    Atrium Stakes Claim To Trust Of Prominent NC Textile Family

    Atrium Health is looking to sack trustees currently standing in the way of the hospital system inheriting a substantial sum of money from one of North Carolina's most prominent families, saying the trustees have refused to pay its distributions and are hiding information.

  • April 12, 2024

    Ex-Pfizer Worker's Pal Avoids Prison In Insider Trading Case

    An electrical engineer was sentenced to probation Friday for trading Pfizer Inc.'s stock using confidential tips about the efficacy of its COVID-19 drug, after a Manhattan federal court recognized his decision to voluntarily assist prosecutors with the trial conviction of his friend, a former Pfizer employee who leaked insider information.

  • April 11, 2024

    Hospitals Responsible For Contract ER Docs, Justices Say

    Washington state's high court ruled on Thursday that hospitals may be held liable for alleged neglectfulness of contracted doctors working in their emergency rooms, reviving negligence claims against the medical center brought by the estate of a woman killed by a flesh-eating disease that ER caregivers allegedly failed to diagnose.

  • April 11, 2024

    Ex-NFL Players Near Settlement In Race-Norming Benefits Suit

    Two former players whose lawsuit accuses the NFL's disability benefit plans of awarding them lower benefits because they are Black told a Maryland federal court they have had "productive" meetings with the defendants and are near a settlement proposal.

  • April 11, 2024

    Medical Cannabis Ads Are Lawful In Miss., 5th Circ. Told

    A Mississippi medical marijuana dispensary is urging the Fifth Circuit to find that state regulations restricting cannabis advertising violate the First Amendment right to free speech, and that the state cannot hide behind the drug's federal illegality.

  • April 11, 2024

    Attys Puzzled By Judge's Refusal To Hear Hybrid Wage Case

    Wage-and-hour cases brought by workers on a group basis under both federal and state law have become so routine in federal courts that attorneys told Law360 they're puzzled by a Michigan federal judge's refusal last week to let such a suit proceed.

  • April 11, 2024

    Pa. Docs Must Face Patient's Post-Op Blood Clot Death Suit

    A Pennsylvania appeals court has revived a woman's suit against her husband's physician over his death from a pulmonary embolism, saying her experts established a factual dispute over whether the doctor's failure to conduct appropriate tests or inform a surgeon of the husband's prior blood clots led to his death.

  • April 10, 2024

    US News Fights Uphill To Block SF's 'Best Hospitals' Probe

    A California federal judge indicated Wednesday he'll likely dismiss U.S. News & World Report's lawsuit challenging the San Francisco City Attorney's subpoenas seeking information about its methodology for ranking hospitals, saying the issue isn't ripe since the subpoenas aren't self-enforcing and the city hasn't yet sued for the information.

  • April 10, 2024

    9th Circ. Mostly Affirms Industry Ban For COVID PPE Delays

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Tuesday largely upheld a district court's ruling requiring personal protective equipment suppliers to pay over $3 million after finding that they misrepresented the shipping times of hand sanitizer products at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, while reversing the Federal Trade Commission's injunction against one of the companies' owners.

  • April 10, 2024

    Novant Wants Fired Exec's Atty Fees Cut After Trip To 4th Circ.

    An attorney representing a former Novant Health executive should receive about $140,000 after prevailing on claims that his client was fired for being white amid a diversity push, the healthcare network said, urging a North Carolina federal judge to reduce the ex-executive's request for about $152,000 in attorney fees.

  • April 10, 2024

    Insurer Slams 'Price-Gouging' Doctor's COVID Billing Suit

    Health plan administrator United Medical Resources Inc. fired back at a doctor's $783,000 suit claiming that he and his practice firms were shortchanged for COVID-19 testing services, with multiple counterclaims alleging that the doctor billed for unnecessary extra testing and put in claims for services that were never rendered.

  • April 09, 2024

    Calif. Addiction Clinic Can't Shake Off Copyright Suit

    An intellectual property and false advertising feud between two rival addiction outpatient clinics in Sacramento will go on, a federal judge in California has ruled.

  • April 09, 2024

    Endo Sues FDA Over Generic Adrenalin Approvals

    Endo has filed a lawsuit against federal health regulatory authorities, alleging that they are wrongfully giving the go-ahead for a generic version of the Adrenalin epinephrine injection, asking for a stay of the decision.

  • April 09, 2024

    Feds Cancel Disputed Sole-Source Health Deal, Call Suit Moot

    The federal government is pressing the U.S. Court of Federal Claims to dismiss a contractor's complaint to a sole-source medical support contract, arguing the suit was moot after the U.S. Army voluntarily canceled the deal.

Expert Analysis

  • Ohio Voters Legalize Cannabis — What Comes Next?

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    This month, voters approved a citizen-initiated statute that legalizes marijuana for recreational use in Ohio, but the legalization timeline could undergo significant changes at the behest of the state's lawmakers, say Daniel Shortt and David Waxman at McGlinchey Stafford.

  • A Telecom Attorney's Defense Of The Chevron Doctrine

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    The Chevron doctrine, which requires judicial deference to federal regulators, is under attack in two U.S. Supreme Court cases — and while most telecom attorneys likely agree that the Federal Communications Commission is guilty of overrelying on it, the problem is not the doctrine itself, says Carl Northrop at Telecommunications Law Professionals.

  • FTC Orange Book Move Signals New Pharma Patent Scrutiny

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    The Federal Trade Commission's recent dispute against improper listing of drug patents in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Orange Book indicates heightened surveillance of the pharmaceutical industry, particularly where competition-related consequences of patent or regulatory processes are concerned, say attorneys at Fenwick.

  • Consider Immigration Issues When Hiring Int'l Medical Grads

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    As health systems across the U.S. struggle to meet patient demand, recruiting international medical graduates can help alleviate some strain, although sorting through the requisite visa processes may require some extra legwork depending on the qualifications of both the graduate and the employer, say Nora Katz and Vinh Duong at Holland & Knight.

  • A Look At DOJ's New Nationwide Investment Fraud Approach

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    Investment fraud charges are increasingly being brought in unlikely venues across the country, and the rationale behind the U.S. Department of Justice's approach could well be the heightened legal standards in connection with prosecuting investment fraud, says Jonathan Porter at Husch Blackwell.

  • FDA's Off-Label Comms Guidance Is A Reluctant Step Forward

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    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's latest draft guidance expands its safe harbor for health care providers that communicate information about their products' off-label uses, but does not fully resolve the First Amendment disconnect between federal courts and the agency's regulatory goals, say Jeffrey Shapiro and Lisa Dwyer at King & Spalding.

  • How Biden's AI Order Stacks Up Against Calif. And G7 Activity

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    Evaluating the federal AI executive order alongside the California AI executive order and the G7's Hiroshima AI Code of Conduct can offer a more robust picture of key risks and concerns companies should proactively work to mitigate as they build or integrate artificial intelligence tools into their products and services, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.

  • ITC Ban On Apple Watch Could Still Be Reversed

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    The U.S. International Trade Commission's recent final decision that the Apple Watch infringed two patents owned by Masimo Corp. was a rare instance of a popular consumer product being hit with an absolute importation ban, but it's possible that President Joe Biden could assert his power to reverse the ITC decision, says Benjamin Horton at Marshall Gerstein.

  • Class Action Defense: Don't Give Up On Bristol-Myers Squibb

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    Federal appellate court decisions in the six years since the U.S. Supreme Court decided Bristol-Myers Squibb show that it's anyone's ballgame in class action jurisdictional arguments, so defendants are encouraged to consider carefully whether, where and when arguing lack of specific personal jurisdiction may be advantageous, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • State Regs Sow Discord Between Cannabis, Hemp Industries

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    Connecticut, Maryland and Washington are the latest states choosing to require intoxicating hemp products to comply with the states' recreational marijuana laws, resulting in a widening rift between cannabis and hemp as Congress works on crafting new hemp legislation within the upcoming 2023 Farm Bill, say attorneys at Wilson Elser.

  • Questions Linger After FDA's Lab-Developed Tests Proposal

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    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's recently proposed rule regarding its plan to regulate lab-developed tests is light on details, leaving many fundamental questions about the agency's authority and ability to execute its plans, say attorneys at Covington.

  • Lessons For Biosimilar And Biologic Antitrust Litigation

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    Aaron Marks at Cohen Milstein considers emerging ways in which biosimilar markets differ from traditional small-molecule drug markets, and recommends how pharmaceutical antitrust litigators can account for these market dynamics in biosimilar-delay cases.

  • Balancing Justice And Accountability In Opioid Bankruptcies

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    As Rite Aid joins other pharmaceutical companies in pursuing bankruptcy following the onslaught of state and federal litigation related to the opioid epidemic, courts and the country will have to reconcile the ideals of economic justice and accountability against the U.S. Constitution’s promise of a fresh start through bankruptcy, says Monique Hayes at DGIM Law.

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