24 results for 'cat:"Health Care" AND cat:"Covid-19"'.
J. Gorton allows a corporation’s motion to dismiss a former employee's claims of violation of his right to due process and equal protection, as well as his civil rights. The corporation allowed employees to be unvaccinated, but required unvaccinated employees to test themselves weekly for Covid-19, and they fired the employee when he refused to follow the testing requirement.
Court: USDC Massachusetts, Judge: Gorton, Filed On: April 25, 2024, Case #: 1:23cv12206, NOS: Civil Rights - Habeas Corpus, Categories: Employment, health Care, covid-19
J. Miller-Lerman finds the workers compensation court improperly dismissed a nurse liaison's petition. The liaison, while working for the hospital, contracted Covid-19 and sought benefits for “occupational disease” arising in the course of employment. However, a genuine issue of fact remains. The court erroneously reasoned that, given the prevalence of Covid-19 at the time, the infection contracted at hospital facilities was a non-compensable "ordinary disease of life." Reversed.
Court: Nebraska Supreme Court, Judge: Miller-Lerman, Filed On: April 19, 2024, Case #: S-23-022, Categories: health Care, covid-19, Workers' Compensation
J. Casper allows four science companies’ motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a man who claims they violated the False Claims Act by allegedly causing Moderna and Pfizer to submit false claims to the federal government. The man fails to state who, specifically, at these companies falsely certified good manufacturing standards compliance of their vaccines to the government.
Court: USDC Massachusetts, Judge: Casper, Filed On: March 15, 2024, Case #: 1:21cv10866, NOS: Qui Tam (31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)) - Torts - Personal Property, Categories: health Care, False Claims, covid-19
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J. Shea denies, in part, the insurer's motion to dismiss, ruling that although the Covid-19 testing provider has not supplied evidence of the insurer's denial of other companies, its proof of hundreds of denied claims for reimbursement of its own testing services is sufficient to establish a plausible claim for an unjust business practice under the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
Court: USDC Connecticut, Judge: Shea, Filed On: March 12, 2024, Case #: 3:22cv83, NOS: Insurance - Contract, Categories: health Care, Insurance, covid-19
J. Papillion grants summary judgment to a children’s hospital, dismissing an employee’s Title VII religious discrimination complaint arising from her nine-day suspension for failing to get a Covid-19 vaccination. Her suspension was lifted and accommodations were made after the last of her four affidavits articulated a bona fide religious belief that conflicted with the hospital’s vaccine requirement. The first three sworn statements included largely disjointed legal maxims, bible verses and portions of the Nuremberg Code on human experiments. The successful fourth affidavit finally stated the employee believes she is “a creation of the one true Creator Almighty,” and that “the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and as such should not be used for medical experimentation.”
Court: USDC Eastern District of Louisiana , Judge: Papillion, Filed On: February 28, 2024, Case #: 2:22cv4757, NOS: Employment - Civil Rights, Categories: Evidence, health Care, covid-19
Per curiam, the circuit finds the district court properly dismissed the parents' challenge to the FDA's emergency use authorizations for child Covid-19 vaccines. The parents do not allege any facts establishing a similarity to cited cases in which children sought vaccines without parental consent, nor do they allege their children are or will be subject to any vaccine mandates possibly imposed by third parties. The parents have not demonstrated an injury in fact and do not have standing. Associated organizations also have not shown standing. Affirmed.
Court: 5th Circuit, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: January 23, 2024, Case #: 23-50167, Categories: Family Law, health Care, covid-19
J. Kacsmaryk finds for a nonprofit on its Freedom of Information Act case seeking 7.8 million text responses to the government's call for information from those who received a Covid-19 vaccine, including symptoms, adverse events, hospitalization or treatment, and safety issues. Production of the data, which will include the registrant number but redact personal identifying information, is not unreasonably burdensome.
Court: USDC Northern District of Texas , Judge: Kacsmaryk, Filed On: January 5, 2024, Case #: 2:23cv102, NOS: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) - Other Suits, Categories: health Care, Public Record, covid-19
J. Bryan grants Washington Gov. Jay Robert Inslee’s motion to dismiss the healthcare workers' complaint that they were mandated to receive the Covid-19 vaccine. Inslee had a rational basis for the proclamation because the Covid-19 vaccine mandate lessened the possibility that the healthcare workers would become infected with the virus and pass it on to their patients. The healthcare workers do not sufficiently plead that they were denied some government benefit because the mandate was in effect.
Court: USDC Western District of Washington, Judge: Bryan, Filed On: December 21, 2023, Case #: 3:23cv5741, NOS: Other Civil Rights - Civil Rights, Categories: Civil Rights, health Care, covid-19
J. Joyce finds the Employment Relations Board (ERB) properly dismissed Portland Fire Fighters’ Association, Local 43 IAFF Union’s unfair labor practice complaint concerning the pandemic-era Oregon Health Authority rule requiring healthcare workers, including firefighters, to receive the Covid-19 vaccine to work in healthcare settings. “ERB’s determination that the Port did not make a change to the status quo was supported by substantial reason.” Affirmed.
Court: Oregon Court of Appeals, Judge: Joyce, Filed On: December 13, 2023, Case #: A178710, Categories: health Care, covid-19, Labor / Unions
J. Kelly finds a lower court improperly denied a defendant's motion for compassionate release after he was convicted for drug trafficking and crimes involving firearms, which resulted in a 360 months sentence and six years of probation. The government argued that his medical challenges, with the exception of one, are not extraordinary. However, the defendant presented sufficient evidence in court that he faced a high risk of contracting Covid-19, and that the lower court may have erred in deciding that his health issues were not "extraordinary and compelling." Reversed.
Court: 8th Circuit, Judge: Kelly, Filed On: December 7, 2023, Case #: 22-3430, Categories: Evidence, health Care, covid-19
J. Hoffman finds that the lower court properly dismissed an employee's discrimination suit against the hospital based on its rejection of her request for a religious exemption to the employer's policy requiring prove of a Covid-19 vaccination. The Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act protects employers from discrimination claims for policies intended to prevent contraction or transmission of Covid. It does not matter if the vaccine actually works to protect recipients, just that it is intended to provide protection against the virus's transmission. Affirmed.
Court: Illinois Appellate Court, Judge: Hoffman, Filed On: October 12, 2023, Case #: 230740, Categories: health Care, covid-19, Employment Discrimination
J. Moon grants the newspaper's motion to dismiss defamation claims. The paper wrote an article critiquing the conspiracy theorist physician who significantly spread misinformation regarding COVID-19 vaccines. None of the statements made in the article can be proven as false and they are opinions in a scientific debate.
Court: USDC Western District of Virginia, Judge: Moon, Filed On: September 29, 2023, Case #: 3:22cv46, NOS: Assault, Libel, & Slander - Torts - Personal Injury, Categories: health Care, Defamation, covid-19
Per curiam, the appellate court grants the estate’s motion to dismiss this interlocutory appeal brought by the health care facility, challenging the trial court’s denial of its combined motions to dismiss and for summary judgment in the underlying wrongful death suit. The cause of death for the 78-year-old woman who was recovering from hip surgery was officially Covid-19. A relevant “pandemic liability statute” cited by the facility does not extend an appellate court’s jurisdiction to an interlocutory order from a ruling denying a motion based on the statute’s affirmative defense.
Court: Texas Courts of Appeals, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: September 28, 2023, Case #: 09-23-00249-CV, Categories: health Care, Wrongful Death, covid-19
J. Saylor partially denies a hospital’s motion for summary judgment against 160 employees suing it after it denied their applications for medical or religious exemptions to the Covid-19 vaccine. The hospital could have chosen not to accept any religious or medical exemptions based on undue hardship, but because it approved 234 exemptions, each employee making a claim based on having been rejected for the exemption has to be reviewed on an individual basis, and the number of exemptions that it takes to create an undue hardship is a matter of dispute. However, summary judgment can be granted in specific cases where an employee failed to provide proof of a medical condition.
Court: USDC Massachusetts, Judge: Saylor, Filed On: September 28, 2023, Case #: 1:21cv11686, NOS: Civil Rights - Habeas Corpus, Categories: health Care, covid-19, Employment Discrimination
J. Zahn finds that substantial evidence supported lower court determinations that an assisted living facility failed to provide a safe living environment or follow federal guidance for Covid-19 infection control training. The district court properly upheld a hearing officer's decision that new admissions to the facility could be banned until it complied with the guidance. Affirmed.
Court: Idaho Supreme Court, Judge: Zahn, Filed On: September 22, 2023, Case #: 49852-2022, Categories: Administrative Law, health Care, covid-19
J. Willett finds the district court improperly dismissed this suit brought by doctors who claim that the FDA's messaging about ivermectin during the Covid-19 pandemic (messaging based on discouraging use of the animal version of the drug) interfered with their own individual medical practice when they attempted to prescribe the human version. The doctors can use the Administrative Procedure Act to bypass sovereign immunity and assert claims that the FDA plausibly overstepped its professional authority by effectively giving medical advice that only physicians should give. Reversed.
Court: 5th Circuit, Judge: Willett , Filed On: September 1, 2023, Case #: 22-40802, Categories: health Care, Agency, covid-19
J. Hutchinson answers in the affirmative the certified question of whether an executive order under which the nursing home seeks immunity provides “blanket immunity for ordinary negligence [claims] to healthcare facilities that rendered assistance to the state during the Covid-19 pandemic.” The question comes from several wrongful-death suits where each decedent passed from complications during the pandemic and alleges that the nursing home negligently failed to control the spread. The court of appeals modifies the question as follows: “Does [the] Executive Order … which triggered the immunity … grant [it] for ordinary negligence claims to healthcare facilities that rendered assistance to the State during the COVID-19 pandemic?” The question is not what the executive order says but what the relevant statute invoked by the order says, which is clear that, except for willful misconduct, any “private person, firm or corporation” who renders “assistance … at the request of the State during [a] disaster shall not be civilly liable for causing the death of, or injury to, any person.” Remanded.
Court: Illinois Appellate Court, Judge: Hutchinson, Filed On: August 17, 2023, Case #: 2-22-0180, Categories: health Care, Wrongful Death, covid-19
J. Scudder finds that the lower court improperly allowed plaintiff's lawsuit challenging a newly-added provision to the Illinois' Health Care Right of Conscience Act that affirmed the legality of Covid-19 vaccine mandates. The lower court's primary conclusion that the addition changed nothing in Illinois law requires dismissing the plaintiffs' challenge for lack of standing. The plaintiffs may then file an appeal from a final judgment. Reversed.
Court: 7th Circuit, Judge: Scudder, Filed On: June 21, 2023, Case #: 23-8012, Categories: Constitution, health Care, covid-19
J. Donovan finds the Department of Health and Human Services correctly decided that the petitioner is ineligible for developmental disability services because it is entitled to use its discretion. It did so with feedback from a clinical neuropsychologist who is also a licensed psychologist, as well as from a consultant with experience with agencies serving high-risk individuals with developmental disabilities. The department’s delay in setting up a hearing and making a final decision was not a violation of scheduling requirements because it was due to the global pandemic and out of its control.
Court: New Hampshire Supreme Court, Judge: Donovan, Filed On: June 7, 2023, Case #: 2022-0181, Categories: health Care, Due Process, covid-19
J. Scudder affirms a district court ruling denying a Wisconsin-based healthcare system’s request for reimbursement by its insurer of $85 million in costs arising from the Covid-19 pandemic. The insurance policy is complex and contains language in one place broadly excluding Covid-related losses while, in another place, supplying limited coverage for portions of those same losses. In the end, the hospital system fails to make a case for coverage beyond the $1 million it received under a limited coverage provision for communicable diseases. Affirmed.
Court: 7th Circuit, Judge: Scudder, Filed On: June 2, 2023, Case #: 22-2577, Categories: health Care, Insurance, covid-19