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TOP NEWS Sutter Can't Delay $575M Antitrust Deal Amid Virus If Sutter Health wants to use COVID-19 as a reason to try to tweak the $575 million antitrust settlement it inked with California's attorney general, it must wait until the deal has been finalized, a state court judge said Thursday in refusing to postpone final approval.
FDA To Restart On-Site Inspections Paused For Virus The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said Friday it will restart on-site, preannounced domestic inspections, paused in March due to the coronavirus pandemic, equipped with a new rating system for investigators to determine the safest areas to continue the agency's enforcement efforts. Mental Health Care Giant Inks $122M Deal To End FCA Suits Universal Health Services has promised to pay $122 million to end 19 suits under the False Claims Act that had accused the behavioral health hospital company of cheating federal health care subsidy programs and putting profit over patient care, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday. PruittHealth Will Get Interest Redo On $11M Software Verdict The Eleventh Circuit largely upheld an $11 million verdict against PruittHealth Inc. on Friday, but said a lower court must recalculate interest on damages awarded against the Georgia health care provider for breaching its contract with a software supplier.
Feature The Firms That Won Big At The Supreme Court Supreme Court oral arguments are always a high wire act. This term, a global pandemic, a docket of hot-button cases and an experiment with remote technology took the challenge to new heights. Here’s a look at the law firms that argued the most, and how they fared. Feature The Majority Of One: How Roberts Is Shaping The Court The 2019 term has removed all doubt: Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. is the power broker on the U.S. Supreme Court. But unlike past swing justices, the nation's top jurist puts the reputation of the court before his own conservative instincts and is willing to compromise when he needs to. Feature Breaking Down The Vote: The High Court Term In Review A docket packed with divisive cases. Experiments in remote oral arguments. Defining moments for the court’s new swing justice. Here, Law360 takes a data dive into the numbers behind this historic court term, when the unexpected reigned supreme. Bill Would Give Tribes 2 More Years To Spend COVID-19 Funds A bipartisan pair of U.S. House of Representatives members are floating a bill to push back the deadline for tribes to spend $8 billion in COVID-19 relief funds from Dec. 30 to the end of 2022, saying the federal government's delays in disbursing the money have contributed to a time crunch on tribes.
11th Circ. Affirms Bulk Of Ala. Doctors' 'Pill Mill' Convictions The Eleventh Circuit on Friday affirmed the convictions of two Alabama doctors found guilty of running a massive "pill mill" operation but ordered resentencing after finding insufficient evidence to support conviction on one charge alleging an illegal kickback conspiracy.
Miss. Businessman Pleads Guilty To $288M Tricare Fraud A Mississippi man has pled guilty to orchestrating a $287.6 million scheme to defraud Tricare by paying doctors and drug distributors kickbacks to refer unnecessary compounded medication prescriptions to his pharmacies, and will forfeit more than $50 million worth of property, luxury cars and an airplane.
Okla. Reimbursement Law Steps On Medicare D, Court Says Oklahoma must pump the brakes on enforcing a law aimed at curbing the power of pharmacy benefit managers while a challenge to the new rules play out, after an Oklahoma federal judge found that parts of the statute are likely preempted by Medicare Part D.
Zimmer Must Face Hip Implant Suit A Pennsylvania federal judge on Friday shot down medical device maker Zimmer's second bid to escape a suit brought by a woman who claims that she was injured by a prosthetic hip, also rejecting the company's request to bar two of her experts.
Client Says Hagen Berman Pulled Fast One On Special Master A Minnesota woman told a Pennsylvania federal court that Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP used clients' protected information as "a sword and a shield" to hide its alleged wrongdoing in its report provided to a special master, who was investigating the firm's bid to drop clients suing GlaxoSmithKline and others for birth defects caused by thalidomide.
Pa. Hospital Says Virus Exclusion Doesn't Apply To 'Expenses' A Pennsylvania hospital urged a federal judge to rule that its "loss of use" of buildings and facilities because of state-mandated COVID-19 closures is a physical loss covered under its policy with Travelers Property Casualty Co., adding that the policy's virus exclusion only applies to coverage of "losses" but not to "business expenses."
Insurer Says COVID-19 Not 'Physical Loss,' So No Coverage The Cincinnati Casualty Co. is asking a Pennsylvania federal court to throw out claims that a bar and restaurant is owed coverage for losses after the state closed nonessential businesses in response to COVID-19, saying the policy only covers physical damage, not a virus transmitted from human to human.
Rite Aid Accuses 47 Generic Makers Of Price-Fixing Rite Aid Corp. filed suit in Pennsylvania federal court accusing 47 generic pharmaceutical makers of conspiring to fix prices for generic drugs and allocate markets, echoing ongoing multidistrict litigation from attorneys general and criminal charges leveled by the DOJ.
AbbVie Faces Suit Over Delays In Generic Blood Pressure Med AbbVie has been hit with a suit in California federal court accusing the drug giant of reaping millions of dollars in profits by paying off competitors to delay generic forms of the blood pressure drug Bystolic.
Bitter Neighbor Sank Farm's Shot At Pot License, Suit Claims A California couple is suing Mendocino County and their neighbor in federal court, claiming the neighbor used her connections with county administrators to squash the couple's application for a license to farm medical marijuana.
Tips For Providing Mental Health Care Remotely Most health providers are prepared for behavioral and mental health warning signs in a physical setting, but as the industry adapts to COVID-19, they must be properly equipped for the challenges of remote treatment as well, say attorneys at Winstead. How Health Info Interoperability Rule Affects Providers The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' new rule implementing interoperability requirements of the 21st Century Cures Act creates new compliance challenges for health care providers and will ultimately require investments in information technology, say Elizabeth Hein and Cynthia Haines at Post & Schell. Opinion Let's Create An Ethical Obligation For Attys To Fight Racism In this moment of national recognition of historical institutional racism, the American Bar Association must implement a model rule that explicitly declares efforts to fight racism and advance equality to be a matter of attorneys' ethics and professional conduct, say Marc Firestone at Philip Morris International and David Douglass at Sheppard Mullin. Firms Wanted PPP Money, But Will It Prevent More Cuts? Law firms accounted for a large portion of the recipients of federal bailout funds designed to save small businesses during the coronavirus pandemic, but some observers speculate that, for a number of those shops, the funds won't be enough to prevent future cuts if COVID-19 continues to drag down the market. Law Firm Leaders' 3 Biggest Worries For The Rest Of 2020 After a wildly tumultuous first half of 2020, law firm leaders are now preparing to take on whatever the second half of the year has in store. Here, leaders share their biggest worries for the remaining six months of the year. Brown Rudnick IP Litigation Team Leaves To Start New Firm The head of Brown Rudnick LLP's patent litigation practice has decamped with his team and clients in tow to launch his own firm in New York City, walking away with virtually all of Brown Rudnick's Manhattan-based patent litigation group. Miller Canfield Lays Off Attorneys Amid COVID-19 Pandemic Miller Canfield Paddock & Stone PLC has instituted layoffs and furloughs of attorneys and other employees amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to reports. NY Bill Would Suspend Two-Fail Bar Exam Rule For Pandemic New legislation would allow New York public defender and government law graduates who have twice failed the bar exam to continue to practice under supervision for the duration of the state's ongoing coronavirus state of emergency. Chicago Federal Court Extends Remote Hearings To Mid-Sept. The Northern District of Illinois' latest COVID-19 safety order entered Friday extends remote hearings into mid-September and keeps an early August target date for jury trials to resume, and the court's two clerk's offices will reopen to the public on Monday. LA Labor Partner Accused Of Sexually Harassing Associate The head of the labor and employment practice at Los Angeles-based law firm Ivie McNeill Wyatt Purcell & Diggs APLC is facing allegations he engaged in an extended campaign of "creepy" behavior toward an associate that peaked with a "nightmarish" incident during a work trip overseas. DOJ's DuCharme Named Acting US Attorney For EDNY U.S. Department of Justice official Seth DuCharme has been tapped as acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, U.S. Attorney General William Barr said Friday, replacing Richard Donoghue, who is in turn taking DuCharme's old job. Study Noting 'Racial Tension,' 'Nepotism' Shakes Philly Courts Court leadership in Philadelphia County on Friday vowed to take action following the release of a damning report from an outside consultant detailing "a culture of nepotism, mistrust and racial tension that is constantly brewing" for staff and judges alike. Flynn Case Paused, DC Circ. Weighing Judge's En Banc Bid The D.C. Circuit hit the brakes Friday on a panel's recent ruling instructing a federal judge to immediately grant the government's request to end the prosecution of former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn as the full appeals court considers whether to rehear the matter. GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week A new survey showed that corporate counsel are divided on whether they think recent work-from-home adjustments will continue or be reversed once the pandemic wanes, and a separate report revealed that more attorneys are getting comfortable with litigation funding. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week. In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360 For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week. Podcast Law360's Pro Say: Absolutely (Not) Immune The U.S. Supreme Court ended its term with a bang this week, rejecting President Donald Trump's claim that he was absolutely immune to a subpoena for his financial records by New York state prosecutors who are pursuing a criminal investigation.
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