Policy & Compliance
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April 08, 2024
High Court Creating DEI Headwinds, Colo. AG Says
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said Monday that the state's major losses last year in cases involving gay rights and prosecuting threatening speech were part of what he views as a trend at the U.S. Supreme Court of hampering efforts to increase diversity, equity and inclusion.
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April 08, 2024
La. Drug Caps Conflict With Federal Law, AbbVie Says
Drugmaker AbbVie is asking a Louisiana federal judge to grant its summary judgment motion and block new state-level pharmaceutical caps for the federal 340B drug discount program, calling the state's competing summary judgment motion arguments "legally and factually wrong."
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April 05, 2024
Ind. Can't Undo Abortion Law Injunction In Jewish Org's Case
An Indiana law banning most abortions in the state remains blocked for certain people with sincerely held religious beliefs, after a state appeals court largely upheld — in a sometimes sharply worded opinion — a preliminary injunction issued in a lawsuit brought by a Jewish reproductive rights group and other individual plaintiffs.
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April 05, 2024
Target, Major Employers Raise New Drug Price-Fixing Claims
Target Corp., Lowe's Cos. Inc. and American Airlines Inc. are among major employers that lodged new price-fixing claims in Pennsylvania federal court against dozens of pharmaceutical companies, accusing them of orchestrating illegal agreements to allocate customers and markets and fix the prices of hundreds of generic drugs for more than a decade.
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April 05, 2024
'Take The Win,' Judge Tells Texas In HHS Abortion Pill Suit
Texas' lawsuit challenging the Biden administration's guidance to require pharmacies to dispense abortion medication is moot following revised U.S. Department of Health and Human Services guidance clarifying that access to the drug isn't for abortion purposes, a federal judge ruled Friday, saying the state "should take the win."
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April 05, 2024
Abbott Settles TM Suit Over Gray Market Diabetes Test Strips
Abbott Laboratories told a New York federal judge Friday that the company has settled what remains of its trademark litigation campaign against makers of gray market diabetes test strips that has been going on since 2015.
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April 05, 2024
Judge Lourie's Dissent Revives Debate Over FDA Safe Harbor
U.S. Circuit Judge Alan Lourie has urged the Federal Circuit to reconsider its precedent over a safe harbor that allows infringement when companies are developing products regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and many attorneys agreed with him that the appeals court has been improperly expanding the safe harbor for decades.
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April 05, 2024
Mich. Plaintiffs Bar Prepares For Growth After Policy Shifts
After decades of the deck stacked against them, Michigan's plaintiffs attorneys are poised to take advantage of a more hospitable environment for personal injury cases and pharmaceutical class actions, though experts caution the learning curve will be steep.
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April 05, 2024
Ex-Marine, Jan. 6 Rioter Gets 21 Months In Vax Card Scam
A former U.S. Marines reservist was sentenced Friday to 21 months in prison after pleading guilty to scheming to distribute fraudulent COVID-19 vaccine cards.
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April 05, 2024
Judge Won't Recuse Herself From Doctor's NBA Fraud Trial
A Manhattan federal judge has refused to step away from the case of a Seattle doctor accused of participating in a scheme to defraud the National Basketball Association's health plan, saying there was "no basis" for his bid to oust her after he took issue with the trial schedule and what he described as systemic barriers.
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April 05, 2024
Ohio Families Can Bolster Bid To End Transgender Law
An Ohio judge said a pair of Buckeye State families can bolster their constitutional challenge to a new law banning gender-affirming healthcare for minors and blocking trans girls from competing in school-age women's sports, issuing an order allowing the families to file briefs beyond the normal length limit.
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April 04, 2024
NY AG Asked To Weigh In On Multiple Sclerosis Drug Fight
The Federal Circuit is asking New York Attorney General Letitia James to weigh in on a patent dispute over a multiple sclerosis drug after it emerged that Acorda Therapeutics' challenge to an underlying arbitral award raises questions about the constitutionality of New York's voluntary payment doctrine.
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April 04, 2024
HHS Asks Justices To Review 5th Circ. Abortion Ruling
The Biden administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to add a Texas legal clash to its review of whether a federal law requiring emergency medical care can preempt state-level abortion bans, a question before the justices in a separate case.
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April 04, 2024
NYC Sues 11 Vape Shops Over Sales Of Flavored E-Cigarettes
The city of New York on Thursday sued 11 e-cigarette wholesalers, saying they're in violation of both city and federal regulations by selling disposable, flavored vapes, which the city said are responsible for a boom of youth vape use.
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April 03, 2024
Healthcare Company Hid Rising Costs Before IPO, Suit Says
Elder-focused healthcare company Agilon Health was hit with an investor's proposed class action in New York federal court alleging that the company failed to acknowledge ahead of its initial public offering that it had been affected by rising medical costs for providers.
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April 03, 2024
Philly Injection Site Org. Isn't Religious, Judge Rules
A Pennsylvania federal judge on Wednesday ruled that an overdose prevention organization planning to open a supervised safe-injection site in Philadelphia is not a religious entity, delivering a win to the U.S. Department of Justice, which opposed the site.
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April 03, 2024
Hospital Workers' Vax Free Speech Suit Falls Flat At 6th Circ.
The Sixth Circuit backed the dismissal of two workers' claims that a children's hospital violated their constitutional rights when it rejected their religious objections to a COVID-19 vaccine mandate, saying Wednesday they failed to show the hospital was a government actor.
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April 03, 2024
Mayo Clinic Stuck Workers With Hefty Medical Bills, Suit Says
A medical claims administrator steered Mayo Clinic health plan participants toward out-of-network healthcare providers and then forced them to foot the bulk of the bill, a proposed class action filed in Minnesota federal court said.
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April 03, 2024
Ex-NBA Guard's Health Fraud Perjury Merits Prison, Feds Say
Manhattan federal prosecutors said a former Detroit Pistons point guard who was convicted on one of two counts over an alleged scheme to defraud the NBA's healthcare plan should be sentenced to 27 to 33 months in prison, claiming he lied during his testimony.
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April 02, 2024
Alaska Judge Tosses Opioid Nuisance Case Against Pharmacies
Retail pharmacies including Walgreens Co. and Walmart Inc. have escaped a suit brought by Alaska in state court over their role in the opioid epidemic after a judge found the state's public nuisance claims were a "bridge too far."
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April 02, 2024
3rd Circ. Preview: Black Lung, Back Pay On Tap In April
The Third Circuit this month will consider Keystone Coal Mining Co.'s contention that a lower court erred in deeming a miner's black lung a "total disability," while a shuttered rehabilitation facility has asked the court to undo the National Labor Relations Board's determination that it owes unionized employees back pay and bonuses for work done during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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April 02, 2024
Healthcare In Court: Idaho AG Not 'Cute' On Abortion Ban
Idaho's solicitor general had a hard day at the Ninth Circuit, where a panel tried and failed to get a lock on the state attorney general's stance on Idaho's abortion ban. Home Depot pressed the U.S. Supreme Court to review a $2.67 billion settlement in antitrust litigation against the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association. And in Texas, a woman charged with murder for inducing her own abortion sued the prosecutors behind the case.
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April 02, 2024
3 Sentenced To Prison In Fla. Fake Nursing Diploma Case
A Florida judge sentenced three people to federal prison time Tuesday after they were convicted for their roles in a multimillion-dollar fake nursing diploma scheme following a jury trial in December
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April 02, 2024
NC GOP Pols Stress Health In Bid To Keep Abortion Law Intact
Two North Carolina abortion law provisions that Attorney General Josh Stein deems unconstitutional are necessary to protect women's health, Republican leaders have argued in a bid to keep hospitalization and fetus-location requirements in the statute.
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April 02, 2024
Conn. Dentists Used Illegal Patient Recruiting, Suit Says
Federal and state authorities filed a kickback and false claims lawsuit in Connecticut federal court on Tuesday against two dental practices in the state and their co-owners for allegedly paying a patient recruiter to generate business through Medicaid.
Expert Analysis
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Immigration Program Pitfalls Exacerbate Physician Shortages
Eliminating shortcomings from U.S. immigration regulations and policies could help mitigate the national shortage of physicians by encouraging foreign physicians to work in medically underserved areas, but progress has been halted by partisan gridlock, say Alison Hitz and Dana Schwarz at Clark Hill.
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Mallory Gives Plaintiffs A Better Shot At Justice
Critics of the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern claim it opens the door to litigation tourism, but the ruling simply gives plaintiffs more options — enabling them to seek justice against major corporations in the best possible court, say Rayna Kessler and Ethan Seidenberg at Robins Kaplan.
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Why Justices' SuperValu Ruling Wasn't Quite A 'Seismic Shift'
Notwithstanding an early victory lap by the relators' bar, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. v. SuperValu Inc. was a win for both whistleblowers and sophisticated companies, but unfortunately left “subjective belief” to be interpreted by lower courts and future litigants, say attorneys at Baker Donelson.
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A Glimpse Into HHS' Digital App Enforcement Priorities
A recent opinion from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General sheds helpful light on the evolving intersection between health care regulation and digital apps, revealing some of the agency's key priorities and concerns in overseeing how federal program patients choose providers, says Mary Kohler at Kohler Health Law.
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Courts Can Overturn Deficient State Regulations, Too
While suits challenging federal regulations have become commonplace, such cases against state agencies are virtually nonexistent, but many states have provisions that allow litigants to bring suit for regulations with inadequate cost-benefit analyses, says Reeve Bull at the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management.
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Tales From The Trenches Of Remote Depositions
As practitioners continue to conduct depositions remotely in the post-pandemic world, these virtual environments are rife with opportunities for improper behavior such as witness coaching, scripted testimony and a general lack of civility — but there are methods to prevent and combat these behaviors, say Jennifer Gibbs and Bennett Moss at Zelle.
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The Double-Edged Sword Of Using ChatGPT In Health Care
While ChatGPT has shown promising potential in health care, one of the key challenges for players in this space is balancing patient privacy and data protection with the benefits of utilizing this technology, say attorneys at Sheppard Mullin.
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Level Up Lawyers' Business Development With Gamification
With employee engagement at a 10-year low in the U.S., there are several gamification techniques marketing and business development teams at law firms can use to make generating new clients and matters more appealing to lawyers, says Heather McCullough at Society 54.
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Addressing Legal Issues Raised By AI Use In Health Care
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
With the usage of artificial intelligence and machine learning in health care likely to be governed by a patchwork of state laws for the near future, industry actors should build flexibility into products to meet evolving regulatory concerns, including monetization of patient data and professional licensing questions, say Sara Shanti and Phil Kim at Sheppard Mullin.
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Mallory Ruling Leaves Personal Jurisdiction Deeply Unsettled
In Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway, a closely divided U.S. Supreme Court recently rolled back key aspects of its 2017 opinion in Daimler AG v. Bauman that limited personal jurisdiction, leaving as many questions for businesses as it answers, say John Cerreta and James Rotondo at Day Pitney.
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Recent Provider Relief Fund Audits Are Just The Beginning
Though the Health Resources and Services Administration's initial audits of the Provider Relief Fund program appear to be limited in scope, fund recipients should prepare for additional oversight, scrutiny and disallowances as the HRSA ramps up its efforts, say Brian Lee and Christopher Frisina at Alston & Bird.
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5 Ways Firms Can Rethink Office Design In A Hybrid World
As workplaces across the country adapt to flexible work, law firms must prioritize individuality, amenities and technology in office design, says Kristin Cerutti at Nelson Worldwide.
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A Midyear Look At How AI Is Affecting Lawyers
The past six months have been a notable period for advancements in artificial intelligence and generative AI, and as we head into the second half of the year, we must review the implications that AI has for the legal industry, including how lawyers will be advising clients on use of AI technology, says Natasha Allen at Foley & Lardner.