The US Supreme Court denied certiorari on United HealthCare’s attempt to enforce an arbitration agreement in its contracts with doctors who filed an Ohio class action over reimbursements. The underlying class action is essentially identical to one that a federal court threw out as meritless in July, though this isn’t mentioned in the television coverage, much less that from Bizarro-Overlawyered. The Class Action Fairness Act effectively ends this sort of Russian-roulette game where plaintiffs get multiple chances to win a gigantic class action by filing in multiple jurisdictions, but does not apply to class actions (like this one) filed before 2004.
The AMA has supported these lawsuits, which is disappointing, to be sure; as I noted on Point of Law in July, “Next time the AMA complains about the costs of excessive meritless litigation, they can perhaps look in the mirror.”
The plaintiffs’ attorney is Overlawyered favorite Stanley Chesley: see Jul. 4, Mar. 6, Aug. 24, 2005, et cetera.
3 Comments
Slightly off-topic:
“Bizarro-Overlawyered” is only a slightly worse name for that blog than “TortDeform,” which just doesn’t explain where it’s coming from. They want to deform torts? They like them? Don’t like them? I see the attempt to play on “reform,” but they might want to go back to the drawing board on that one. Maybe overlawyered readers can propose a better name (seriously or in jest).
And is Justinian Lane a pseudonym or what?
I think Overlawyered should just ignore them. At the moment, it seems the bulk of their traffic comes from this site.
Tort deform is a dumb name, but so is tort reform. Everyone “dislikes” torts, don’t they? Torts are harms, injuries, wrongful acts. Not clear to me how you can either reform or deform them. The question is what the rules should be for dealing with them.