Latest 6 Cases This Week: Calvary Chapel of Bangor v. Mills (1st Cir.), Lisnitzer v. Zucker (2d Cir.), Hubbard v. Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals ...

The Twenty-Sixth Amendment and the Real Rigging of Georgia’s Election

VIKRAM DAVID AMAR

Illinois law dean Vikram David Amar explains why Georgia’s law allowing persons 75 years and older to get absentee ballots for all elections in an election cycle with a single request, while requiring younger voters to request absentee ballots separately for each election, is a clear violation of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment. Dean Amar acknowledges that timing may prevent this age discrimination from being redressed in 2020, but he calls upon legislatures and courts to understand the meaning of this amendment and prevent such invidious disparate treatment of voters in future years.

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COVID Comes to Federal Death Row—It Is Time to Stop the Madness

AUSTIN SARAT

Austin Sarat—Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence & Political Science at Amherst College—explains the enhanced risk of COVID-19 infection in the federal death row in Terre Haute, not only among inmates but among those necessary to carry out executions. Professor Sarat calls upon the Trump administration and other officials to focus on saving, rather than taking, lives inside and outside prison.

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Calvary Chapel of Bangor v. Mills

Court: US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit

Docket: 20-1507

Opinion Date: December 22, 2020

Judge: Selya

Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Health Law

The First Circuit dismissed this appeal without prejudice for lack of appellate jurisdiction, holding that the appeal was premature. In the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Governor of Maine responded to the threat of contagion by issuing executive orders limiting all non-essential activities and gatherings. Plaintiff Calvary Chapel of Bangor brought this action arguing that those orders violated the First Amendment's Free Speech, Free Exercise, Assembly, and Establishment protections. The district court refused Plaintiff's request for a temporary restraining order. Plaintiff appealed. The First Circuit dismissed the appeal, holding that this case did not display the criteria this Court has previously identified as characterizing a de facto denial of injunctive relief and that the remaining requirements for appealability were not satisfied.

Lisnitzer v. Zucker

Court: US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

Docket: 19-470

Opinion Date: December 23, 2020

Judge: Guido Calabresi

Areas of Law: Government & Administrative Law, Health Law

Defendants appealed the district court's judgment certifying a plaintiff class and enjoining state defendants from conducting Medicaid fair hearings in a manner that does not result in final determinations of Medicaid eligibility within 90 days of hearing requests. At issue is the phrase "final administrative action" in the context of a federal Medicaid regulation that requires a state agency to take such action within a specified time limit following a Medicaid applicant's request for a fair hearing. 42 C.F.R. 431.244(f). The Second Circuit held that the federal regulatory requirement of "final administrative action" within 90 days requires the state to determine Medicaid eligibility within that time. However, the court explained that such determinations may be made in hearing decisions or on remand to local agencies. Therefore, the regulation mandates that states meet the applicable deadline, but it does not limit states as to the administrative level at which that deadline is met. The court affirmed in part and remanded for further proceedings.

Hubbard v. Bayer Healthcare Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Court: US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit

Docket: 19-13087

Opinion Date: December 22, 2020

Judge: Marcus

Areas of Law: Drugs & Biotech, Health Law, Medical Malpractice, Personal Injury, Products Liability

In 2012, 41-year-old Karen Hubbard suffered a catastrophic stroke caused by a blood clot to her brain--a venous sinus thrombosis, a type of venous thromboembolism (VTE). She had been taking Beyaz, a birth control pill manufactured by Bayer. While she first received a prescription for Beyaz on December 27, 2011, Karen had been taking similar Bayer birth control products since 2001. The pills are associated with an increased risk of blood clots. The Beyaz warning label in place at the time of Karen’s Beyaz prescription warned of a risk of VTEs and summarized studies. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of Bayer. Georgia’s learned intermediary doctrine controls this diversity jurisdiction case. That doctrine imposes on prescription drug manufacturers a duty to adequately warn physicians, rather than patients, of the risks their products pose. A plaintiff claiming a manufacturer’s warning was inadequate bears the burden of establishing that an improved warning would have caused her doctor not to prescribe her the drug in question. The Hubbards have not met this burden. The prescribing physician testified unambiguously that even with the benefit of the most up-to-date risk information about Beyaz, he considers his decision to prescribe Beyaz to Karen to be sound and appropriate.

Henderson County Health Care Corp. v. Honorable Karen Lynn Wilson

Court: Kentucky Supreme Court

Docket: 2020-SC-0001-MR

Opinion Date: December 17, 2020

Judge: Michelle M. Keller

Areas of Law: Health Law, Personal Injury

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals denying Henderson County Health Care Corporation's (hereinafter, Redbanks) petition for a writ of prohibition prohibiting the enforcement of an order issued by Judge Karen Wilson of the Henderson Circuit Court compelling Redbanks to produce certain consultant reports to the real party of interest, Roland McGuire, holding that the court of appeals erred. Specifically, the Supreme Court held Redbanks was entitled to the issuance of the writ because the consultant reports at issue in this case were protected by the Federal Quality Assurance Privilege, 42 U.S.C. 1396r(b)(1)(B) and 42 U.S.C. 1395i-3(b)(1)(B), because they were used for quality assurance purposes.

DiCesare v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hosp. Auth

Court: North Carolina Supreme Court

Docket: 156A17-2

Opinion Date: December 18, 2020

Judge: Ervin

Areas of Law: Antitrust & Trade Regulation, Constitutional Law, Health Law

In this dispute in which Plaintiffs sought reimbursement for healthcare costs based upon claims for restraint of trade and monopolization pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. Chapter 75 and N.C. Const. art. I, 34, the Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the order of the trial court deciding issues arising from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority's motion for judgment on the pleadings, holding that the trial court erred in part. Plaintiffs were a group of current and former North Carolina residents who were covered under the commercial health insurance obtained through the Hospital Authority, a non-profit corporation providing healthcare services with a principal place of business in Charlotte. The trial court granted the Hospital Authority's motion for judgment on the pleadings with respect to Plaintiffs' restraint of trade and monopolization claims but denied the motion with respect to Plaintiffs' monopolization claim. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, holding that the trial court (1) did not err in granting judgment on the pleadings with respect to Plaintiffs' Chapter 75 restraint of trade and monopolization claims; but (2) erred by denying the motion for judgment on the pleadings with respect to Plaintiffs' claim pursuant to article I, section 34.

Miller v. Life Care Centers of America, Inc.

Court: Wyoming Supreme Court

Citation: 2020 WY 155

Opinion Date: December 18, 2020

Judge: Kautz

Areas of Law: Arbitration & Mediation, Health Law

The Supreme Court reversed the judgment of the district court granting Defendant's motion to compel arbitration under the "voluntary agreement for arbitration" Rick Miller signed on behalf of his mother, Julia Miller, after she was admitted to Life Care Center of Casper (LCCC), holding that Rick lacked authority to execute the agreement. After Julia died allegedly from injuries sustained during a series of mishaps at LCCC Rick filed this complaint stating claims of negligence and premises liability against Defendant. Defendant filed a motion to compel arbitration. The court granted the motion. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) Julia's durable power of attorney for health care did not grant Rick express actual authority to sign the arbitration agreement; (2) Julia did not hold Rick out as having apparent authority to sign the agreement; and (3) Rick was not authorized to execute the arbitration agreement as Julia's "surrogate" under the Wyoming Health Care Decisions Act, Wyo. Stat. Ann. 35-22-401 through 416.