Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

A patient sued a hospital after learning that a hospital employee intentionally disclosed the patient’s health information in violation of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). The patient alleged the disclosure breached the hospital’s contractual obligations to him. The superior court instructed the jury to return a verdict for the hospital if the jury found that the employee was not acting in the course and scope of employment when she disclosed the patient’s information. The jury so found, leading to judgment in the hospital’s favor. The Alaska Supreme Court found the jury instruction erroneously applied the rule of vicarious liability to excuse liability for breach of contract. "A party that breaches its contractual obligations is liable for breach regardless of whether the breach is caused by an employee acting outside the scope of employment, unless the terms of the contract excuse liability for that reason." The Court therefore reversed judgment and remanded for further proceedings, in particular to determine whether a contract existed between the patient and hospital and, if so, the contract’s terms governing patient health information. View "Guy v. Providence Health & Services Washington" on Justia Law

Appellees, Rite Aid Corporation, Rite Aid Hdqtrs. Corp., and Rite Aid of Maryland, Inc. (collectively, “Rite Aid”), held a general liability insurance policy underwritten by defendany Chubb, Limited ("Chubb"). Rite Aid and others were defendants in multi-district litigation before the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio (the “MDL Opioid Lawsuits”). Plaintiffs in that suit filed over a thousand suits in the MDL Opioid Lawsuits against companies in the pharmaceutical supply chain for their roles in the national opioid crisis. Certain suits were bellwether suits - including the complaints of Summit and Cuyahoga Counties in Ohio (“the Counties”) which were at issue here. The question this case presented for the Delaware Supreme Court was whether insurance policies covering lawsuits “for” or “because of” personal injury required insurers to defend their insureds when the plaintiffs in the underlying suits expressly disavowed claims for personal injury and sought only their own economic damages. The Superior Court decided that Rite Aid’s insurance carriers were required to defend it against lawsuits filed by two Ohio counties to recover opioid-epidemic-related economic damages. As the court held, the lawsuits sought damages “for” or “because of” personal injury because there was arguably a causal connection between the counties’ economic damages and the injuries to their citizens from the opioid epidemic. The Supreme Court reversed, finding the plaintiffs, governmental entities, sought to recover only their own economic damages, specifically disclaiming recovery for personal injury or any specific treatment damages. Thus, the carriers did not have a duty to defend Rite Aid under the governing insurance policy. View "ACE American Insurance Company v. Rite Aid Corporation" on Justia Law

In the latter part of August 2021, University Health Shreveport, LLC d/b/a Ochsner LSU Health Shreveport and LSU Health-St. Mary Medical Center, LLC (Employer) notified all employees that they were required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by October 29, 2021. Employees not vaccinated within the specified time were subject to disciplinary action, including mandatory use of leave time and, ultimately, termination. Employer’s policy permitted exemptions to the vaccine requirement for valid religious and medical reasons. Thereafter, 39 plaintiffs (Employees) filed suit against Employer, challenging the employee vaccine mandate and requesting injunctive and declaratory relief, including a temporary restraining order (TRO). The Louisiana Supreme Court found the issue of a vaccine mandate implemented by a healthcare-employer was resolved by the application of Louisiana Civil Code article 2747, the employment-at-will doctrine. "an employer is at liberty to dismiss an at-will employee and, reciprocally, the employee is at liberty to leave the employment to seek other opportunities. However, these rights are tempered by federal and state provisions, both statutory and constitutional, but no such exceptions apply here. Employees have no statutory claim under La. R.S. 40:1159.7 because there is no healthcare provider-patient relationship alleged here. Employees likewise have no constitutional claim under La. Const. art. I, sec. 5 because the employer is a private actor, and this constitutional provision only limits governmental actors. Accordingly, the decision of the court of appeal is reversed, and the judgment of the trial court is reinstated." View "Hayes, et al. v. Univ. Health Shreveport, LLC" on Justia Law

In late 2015, decedent Cody Albert (“Cody”) and his childhood friend, Zachary Ross (“Zachary”) struggled with substance abuse issues. At that time, Zachary’s mother, April Kravchenko, was suffering from multiple myeloma for which her doctors prescribed her several opiate pain medications, which she filled at a small, independent pharmacy in Scranton called Sheeley’s Drug Store. Kravchenko and her sister Debra Leggieri worried Zachary would try to pick up (and use) Kravchenko’s pain medication from Sheeley’s while Kravchenko was in the hospital. To prevent this, Leggieri called Sheeley’s and placed a restriction on who could pick up Kravchenko’s prescriptions. Zachary called Sheeley’s one day pretending to be his mother, and asked about refilling her OxyContin prescription. Donato Iannielli, owner-pharmacist Lori Hart’s father, and the prior owner of Sheeley’s, was the pharmacist on-duty at the time, and told “Kravchenko” that her OxyContin prescription could not be filled yet, but that she had a prescription for fentanyl patches ready to be picked up. “Kravchenko” told Iannielli that she wanted to send her son to pick up the patches, but stated that he did not have a driver’s license or other form of identification. Iannielli told the caller that this would not be a problem, since he personally knew and would recognize Zachary. Cody then drove Zachary to Sheeley’s, where Zachary picked up Kravchenko’s medication even though, according to Zachary, the pharmacy receipt explicitly stated, “[d]o not give to son.” On the drive back to Zachary’s house, Cody at some point consumed fentanyl from one of the patches, smoked marijuana, and then fell asleep on the once inside the house. Later that night, Zachary tried to wake Cody up, but he was unresponsive. Cody was later pronounced dead at a hospital. Zachary eventually pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and multiple drug offenses in connection with Cody’s overdose. The question in this appeal was whether claims brought against the pharmacy on behalf of the decedent who overdosed on illegally obtained prescription drugs was barred by the doctrine of in pari delicto. Because the Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that the trial court correctly applied the in pari delicto doctrine, judgment was affirmed. View "Albert v. Sheeley's Drug Store, et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company (State Farm) filed an Insurance Fraud Protection Act (IFPA) action alleging defendants Sonny Rubin, M.D., Sonny Rubin, M.D., Inc., and Newport Institute of Minimally Invasive Surgery (collectively, defendants) fraudulently billed insurers for various services performed in connection with epidural steroid injections. A month prior, however, another insurer, Allstate, filed a separate IFPA lawsuit against the same defendants, alleging they were perpetrating a similar fraud on Allstate. The trial court sustained defendants’ demurrer to State Farm’s complaint under the IFPA’s first-to-file rule, finding it alleged the same fraud as Allstate’s complaint. State Farm appealed, arguing its complaint alleged a distinct fraud. After review, the Court of Appeal agreed the demurrer was incorrectly sustained, but for another reason. The Court found the trial court and both parties only focused on whether the two complaints alleged the same fraudulent scheme, but in this matter of first impression, the Court found the IFPA’s first-to-file rule required an additional inquiry. "Courts must also review the specific insurer-victims underlying each complaint’s request for penalties. If each complaint seeks penalties for false insurance claims relating to different groups of insurer-victims, the first-to-file rule does not apply. A subsequent complaint is only barred under the first-to-file rule if the prior complaint alleges the same fraud and seeks penalties arising from the false claims, submitted to the same insurer-victims." Judgment was reversed and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "California ex rel. State Farm Mutual Automobile Ins. Co. v. Rubin" on Justia Law

Lighthouse Church filed suit challenging the legality of executive orders the Governor of Virginia issued to combat the spread of COVID-19. The specific executive orders that Lighthouse Church challenged expired in June of 2020, and the state of emergency in Virginia upon which they were predicated ended on July 1, 2021. Furthermore, the end of the state of emergency terminated all outstanding COVID-19-related executive orders.The Fourth Circuit vacated and remanded for dismissal of the action as moot, concluding that the executive orders that Lighthouse Church challenges are no longer in effect and no exception to mootness is applicable. Therefore, there is no live controversy between the parties in these proceedings. Because the action is moot, the court also vacated the district court's judgment without reaching or addressing the issue concerning Governor Northam's entitlement to sovereign immunity. View "Lighthouse Fellowship Church v. Northam" on Justia Law

Appellant Kristi Ho, a nurse, sued her employer, appellee Tulsa Spine & Specialty Hosptial, L.L.C., alleging that the Hospital fired her because she would not come to work. She refused to go to work because of concern for her health and safety. She alleged the Hospital violated the Governor's directive to discontinue elective surgeries for a short time during a COVID-19 pandemic, and it did so without providing her proper personal protective equipment. The Hospital filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the nurse was an employee-at-will, and that she failed to state a claim for wrongful discharge under Oklahoma law. The trial court agreed, and dismissed the lawsuit. The nurse appealed, and the Oklahoma Supreme Court retained the case to address a matter of first impression: whether the Governor's temporary emergency COVID orders expressed public policy necessary to apply an exception to at-will employment which would support an action for wrongful discharge. After review, the Court held that because the Legislature expressly granted the Governor authority to issue temporary emergency orders, and the orders expressed the established public policy of curtailing an infectious disease, the exception to at-will employment as articulated by Burk v. K-Mart Corp., 770 P.2d 24 and its progeny, was applicable from March 24, 2020, until April 30, 2020. View "Ho v. Tulsa Spine & Specialty Hospital" on Justia Law

Several entities that owned or operated hospitals in Alabama ("plaintiffs") filed suit against manufacturers of prescription opioid medications, distributors of those medications, and retail pharmacies ("defendants"), alleging that defendants' marketing or selling of the medications resulted in an epidemic of opioid abuse in Alabama. Plaintiffs sought to recover unreimbursed medical expenses incurred in treating individuals with opioid-related medical conditions. Among other theories of liability, plaintiffs asserted that defendants had created a public nuisance in the form of the epidemic. The trial court entered a case-management order directing the parties to try each of plaintiffs' causes of action separately. The public-nuisance claim was to be tried first and is itself to be bifurcated into two separate trials. The first trial on the public-nuisance claim was to involve "liability," and the second trial was to involve "special damage." Defendants, asserting that the trial court had erred in bifurcating the public-nuisance claim, petitioned the Alabama Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus directing the trial court to vacate the relevant portion of the case-management order. The Supreme Court granted the writ: "conducting a trial on the issue of the defendants' 'liability' for a public nuisance and a second trial on 'special damage' neither avoids prejudice nor furthers convenience, expedition, or economy. We can only conclude that the trial court exceeded its discretion. We therefore grant the defendants' petition and issue a writ of mandamus." View "Ex parte Endo Health Solutions Inc. et al." on Justia Law

Liver-transplant candidates and transplant hospitals challenged HHS's adoption of a new policy for allocating donated livers. In 2019, the Eleventh Circuit held that the plaintiffs had not shown a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claim that the Secretary failed to follow procedures under 42 C.F.R. 121.4(b) during the new liver-allocation policy's development. Section 121.4(b) does not require the Secretary to refer the new liver allocation policy to an Advisory Committee on Organ Transplantation or to publish the new policy in the Federal Register for public comment. The court remanded for the district court to consider the remaining Administrative Procedure Act and Fifth Amendment claims.The district court ordered limited discovery on remand. The defendants ultimately produced requested communications between its top-level personnel and outside policymakers that, according to the plaintiffs, exposed “bad faith and improper behavior.” The district court ultimately excluded the documents from the administrative record for the APA claim, while noting that the documents included “colorable evidence of animosity and even some measure of regional bias.” The hospitals moved to unseal the documents. In 2021, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed an order unsealing the documents. The documents here are “plainly judicial records” and the appellants have not shown good cause to keep them sealed. View "Callahan v. United Network for Organ Sharing" on Justia Law

Vargas received extensive medical care from the Veterans Administration. In his suit under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. 2671–80, he argued that a VA nurse was negligent in failing to order additional tests after receiving the results of urinalysis in October 2015. More testing, Vargas contended, would have revealed that he suffered from a urinary tract infection; failure to diagnose that infection led to a heart attack, which led to extended hospitalization, which led to pain and inflammation.The Seventh Circuit affirmed the rejection of his claims, upholding the district judge’s decision to allow testimony from a board-certified urologist. Federal Rule of Evidence 702 governs the admissibility of expert evidence in suits under the FTCA. The district judge was entitled to consider the urologist’s view that the applicable standard of care did not require follow-up testing to look for a urinary tract infection. If even a board-certified urologist would not have seen anything in the test result calling for further lab work, then a nurse practitioner’s identical decision cannot be negligent. Illinois does not hold nurses to the higher standard of specialists. View "Love v. United States" on Justia Law