The Lighter Side of Health Law – March 2022

AHLA's monthly podcast featuring health lawyer and blogger Norm Tabler's informative and entertaining take on recent health law and other legal developments. 

To learn more about AHLA and the educational resources available to the health law community, visit americanhealthlaw.org.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

This episode of HL, a speaking of health law is brought to you by HLA members and donors like you. For more information, visit American health law.org.

Speaker 2: 0:22

Hi, I'm norm Taber with this month's edition of the lighter side of health law. The now I've heard it all award this month's. Now I've heard it. All award goes to therea lights of Florida. There has sued her former employer, Amazon for threatening her and causing her to let her health insurance lapse. You're wondering just what was the threat? Well, when Theresa ended her employment, Amazon sent her a Cobra notice, which as you know, explains the terms under which a former employee can continue her health insurance, but Theresa complaints, Amazon stuck a lot of scary stuff in her Cobra. Notice what kind of scary stuff well says Theresa, like saying there's a$50 penalty. If you don't provide the IRS with a correct tax ID number and Theresa complaints. I know that the statement about the$50 penalty is accurate, but seeing it there and black and white scared me. So I didn't exercise my Cobra rights. I let my health insurance lapse and had to pay my own medical bills. Q E D. I'm going to go out on a limb here and speculate that if Amazon had not included the penalty language TOSA, would've sued them for leaving it out. The case is rights versus Amazon Southern district, Florida. I'll never understand here's yet. Another thing I'll never understand people who claim to be humiliated by a statement and then go around making sure the statement gets as much exposure as humanly possible. Take the case of Minnesota lawyer. Jeff Brown, the owner of a taxi company was unhappy with the way Jeff handled a case in his role as conciliation court referee. So the owner posted a one star review on Jeff's website, along with the comment, quote, need to go back to law school. He deleted it after a few weeks, but the deletion did not satisfy Jeff. He sued the taxi owner for$170,000 plus punitive damages for defamation two results followed first, the tax taxi owner, one hands down the appellate court. Noting there is no such thing as a false opinion. Second, the opinion that Jeff needs to go back to law school was published in newsletters across the country. I read it in four different publications. As I said, I'll never understand the case is gold star taxi versus brown Minnesota court of appeals, his crown achievement, Wisconsin dentist Scott Shmo was by any measure, the king of dental crowns from 2016 to 2019, he was in the top 5% of crown installers in the entire state. How did he do it? Well, like so many great ideas. It was simple. He would tell the patient, there was a suspicious spot or line on a tooth. Then he would use his drill to break off a piece of the tooth. That's when he would soberly inform the patient that alas, you need a crown. And in fairness to Scott, at that point, the patient really did need a crown. Scott would then submit an insurance claim and he did not restrict the scam to special occasions. If you visited his office in 2016, there was an 84% chance he would break off a piece of your tooth, but all good things must come to an end. This month, he was convicted of five counts of healthcare fraud and two counts of making false statements. The case is us versus charm Eastern district, Wisconsin, the Gentile world of medical marketing, David Phillips was CEO of a medical marketing company. He had a cracker shack idea for dealing with a competing company. He hired a drug dealer to murder the CEO of the competitor. Yes, murder him. David was arrested convicted under the federal murder for hire statute and sent to prison. Then two years after David's arrest, his intended victim sued David and his company for assault and various injuries arising from the murder plot, David and company demanded that state farm cover the claim under their commercial general liability policy. Here's where it gets puzzling. The policy specifically says, quote, this policy does no not apply to injury arising out of a criminal act committed by or at the direction of the insured. Nevertheless, for too long years, state farm provided a defense of David and his company in the suit by the victim only then did state farm file for a declaratory judgment that David and his company are not covered. My question is what took them so long. The case is state farm versus Phillips central district, California. There are worse things than losing generally when you lose a case and file an appeal, you assume that the worst that can happen is you lose the appeal, but it can get worse. Just ask Ohio attorney Percy Squire, the sixth circuit wasn't content with handing Percy's client a loss. It went on to emphasize the striking legal emptiness of Percy's brief, noting that it was quote devoted to frivolous argumentation and wasted quote our time and his adversary's money accordingly the court publicly sanctioned Percy and fined him$1,500. So there are worse things than losing the case. The case is Frank versus Goodson, Mari sixth circuit. At least it's not an Leski. John Leski is senior enforcement council for the New York state attorney General's office and lead attorney for the plaintiffs in the nation's biggest opioid lawsuit. It resulted in a liability verdict against Teva pharmaceutical that could cost the company billions of dollars, except that Teva may get a mistrial at Doover. Why? Because in his closing argument, Leski displayed a PowerPoint that said that a single Teva unit had sold 150 billion doses of opioids in the state over a 10 year period, 150 billion billion with a B that would mean that the unit had given 7,500 doses to every man, woman, child in the state Leski agrees. It's a preposterous figure. He doesn't know where it came from and he has apologized for it. Don't get me wrong. I feel bad for Leski, but on the upside, his mistake makes any mistake. I'm likely to make downright trivial. That's why we're gonna get caught. I'll just say, Hey, at least it's not an Leski the absentee host, all of us have had one time or another accepted an invitation and then decided not to go. But what if it was the host who was a no-show? That was essentially the case when New York lawyer fava Jaffery decided not to appear for oral argument before of a circuit after all it was fava who had filed the appeal. Oral argument was scheduled for bright and early Monday, late Friday afternoon, fava called the clerk, said the case had been settled and asked to have the oral argument canceled. The clerk said it doesn't work that way. The oral argument will be held unless a motion to dismiss is filed. And granted later that Friday, after the close of business, fava filed a motion to dismiss the appeal too late for the court to see let alone grant the motion. When fava was a no-show at the oral argument, the court was more than a little steamed. It reviewed her tardy motion and denied it. Not only because it was very, very late, but also because it failed to comply with the appellate rules was not signed by the opposing counsel and did not address us allocation of costs and fees. As unhappy as the court was with FARs motion, it was even more unhappy with her response to the show cause order the court issued an order of reprimand, blasting fava for failing to explain why her motion was so late, why it was incomplete and why she felt free to disregard the clerk's instructions. Most infuriatingly Ava's response seemed to rest on the premise that it's up to the lawyers, not the court to decide when oral argument is necessary. Now fava will have to disclose the reprimand. Whenever she's asked her disciplinary history, the case is Oasis legal versus Choda seventh circuit. Well, that's it for this month's edition of the lighter side of health law. I hope you enjoyed it. Check your a week clay and health law connections magazine for the next edition.

Speaker 1: 7:48

Thank you for listening. If you enjoy this episode, be sure to subscribe to a L a speaking of health law, wherever you get your podcasts to learn more about AHL a and the edge resources available to the health law community, visit American health law.org.