Articles and Blogs

The Indiana Court of Appeals (the “Court”) recently reiterated that trial courts may not impose “special conditions” in civil commitment orders without record evidence tying the condition to the patient’s treatment or public safety. The Court invalidated a trial court’s blanket prohibition on alcohol and non-prescription drugs, finding no evidentiary basis for the restriction.... READ MORE

Parties to litigation are often dismayed by its costs. Attorney fees alone can motivate the payment of handsome settlements even in meritless cases, and litigation costs tend to make traditional litigation unavailable, impracticable or uneconomical as a tool for individuals and organizations if substantial funds are not available or if the dispute is not... READ MORE

The Second Circuit Court of Appeals emphasized, in affirming a district court’s ruling on a motion to dismiss, that a contract merely incorporating a statutory or regulatory payment provision by reference, without more, does not make all terms of the statutory and regulatory scheme material, express conditions of payment in False Claims Act cases.... READ MORE

“Ladies and Gentlemen, start your engines.” As shuttered businesses look for avenues of relief from the COVID-19 crisis, they are being told that the business interruption insurance they’ve paid for, often for many years, won’t help. Insurance companies are routinely denying the claims. Many are responding by racing to the courthouse to ask the... READ MORE

Litigators and litigants should always be wary of templates, unconsidered boilerplate pleadings—and unnecessary motion practice. Last week, a federal court in Wisconsin struck boilerplate affirmative defenses that lacked “short and plain statement of the facts and…the necessary elements of the defenses.”[1] The ruling reinforced the Seventh Circuit’s standards for affirmative defenses—even though the judge... READ MORE

In Justice Kavanaugh’s first written opinion since he joined the Supreme Court, he addressed one of the most common disputes associated with arbitration agreements: who decides what issues should be arbitrated? In Henry Schein, et al. v Archer & White and Sales, Inc.,¹ the Supreme Court held that it is the arbitrator, not the court,... READ MORE

In an opinion loaded with linguistic hooks, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida recently reinforced the Supreme Court’s holding in Escobar, enthusiastically highlighting the importance of materiality and scienter in FCA cases. Background In U.S. ex rel. Ruckh v. Salus Rehabilitation, LLC, et al., Relators were successful in a... READ MORE

The Fifth Circuit recently addressed pre-suit disclosure and causation requirements for FCA theories of liability in United States ex rel. King v. Solvay Pharmaceuticals Inc., 871 F.3d 318 (5th Cir. 2017). Two former employees (“Relators”) of Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc. filed a qui tam suit claiming that Solvay induced false Medicaid claims through a variety... READ MORE

On August 30, 2016, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals (“Court”) affirmed the circuit court’s decision that a plaintiff had not stated a claim on which relief could be granted in an action against a hospital and its employees for alleged violations of Wis. Stat. § 146.82, regarding the confidentiality of health care records, and... READ MORE

On June 23, 2016, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in a 5-2 opinion that the City of Milwaukee can no longer enforce a requirement that police, firefighters, teachers and other public workers maintain bona fide residence within the city boundaries. The ruling reverses the state appeals court’s decision that a 2013 state law, Wis.... READ MORE