Justia U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Approximately one month after Dr. Richard Briggs prescribed sixteen-year-old Peter Schilf Cymbalta for his depression, Peter committed suicide. The Cymbalta literature did not include an FDA-approved black box warning stating that Cymbalta could induce suicidality in children diagnosed with depression. Peter's parents (Appellants) sued Eli Lilly & Company and Quintiles Transnational Corporation ("Lilly"), alleging that Lilly's failure to warn and deceit caused the death of Peter. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Lilly. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding (1) there were genuine issues of material fact whether Dr. Briggs knew the suicide-related information that an adequate warning would have contained; and (2) there were genuine issues of material fact whether an adequate warning would have changed Dr. Briggs' decision to prescribe Cymbalta to Peter. View "Schilf v. Eli Lilly & Co." on Justia Law

The Governor and Attorney General of South Dakota, along with two intervening crisis pregnancy centers and two of their personnel appealed the district court's permanent injunction barring enforcement of a South Dakota statute requiring the disclosure to patients seeking abortions of an "increased risk of suicide ideation and suicide" and the underlying grant of summary judgment in favor of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota and its medical director Dr. Carol Ball. The district court found that this advisory would unduly burden abortion rights and would violate physicians' First Amendment right to be free from compelled speech. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, holding that on its face, the suicide advisory presented neither an undue burden on abortion rights nor a violation of physicians' free speech rights. View "Planned Parenthood Minn, N.D., S.D. v. Rounds" on Justia Law

The Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) imposed a civil money penalty on Greenbrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, a skilled nursing facility in Arkansas, for noncompliance with Medicare participation requirements. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Greenbrier's petition for review, holding (1) substantial evidence supported HHS's finding that Greenbrier was not in substantial compliance with 42 C.F.R. 483.25; (2) the finding that Greenbrier's noncompliance with section 483.25 rose to the level of immediate jeopardy was not erroneous; and (3) judicial review of two of Greenbrier's objections to the monetary penalty was barred, and Greenbrier received adequate notice of its noncompliance. View "Greenbrier Nursing v. U.S. Dep't of Health & Human Servs." on Justia Law

Dr. Lee Davis, an African-American cardiologist, obtained medical-staff privileges at Jefferson Regional Medical Center (JRMC). Later, JRMC's Board of Directors voted to revoke Davis's medical-staff privileges for poor quality of patient care, improper medical documentation, and unprofessional behavior. Davis filed the instant suit in federal district court, alleging, inter alia, race discrimination and retaliation, in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1981 and the Arkansas Civil Rights Act (ACRA), and conspiracy to interfere with his civil rights, in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1985(3). The district court granted summary judgment to Defendants, JRMC, its CEO, and several physicians (Defendants), and dismissed all of Davis's claims. The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) because Davis failed to provide any evidence giving rise to an inference that Defendants racially discriminated against him, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment on Davis's race discrimination claims; (2) Davis failed to establish a prima facie case of retaliation under section 1981 and ACRA; and (3) the district court did not err in dismissing Davis's civil rights conspiracy claim pursuant to section 1985(3), as Davis failed to show any racial animus on the part of Defendants.

Plaintiff, as the administratrix of Brenda Shelton's estate, appealed the district court's dismissal of her civil action against several public officials and health officials. The complaint alleged shortcomings in the way medical professionals at a state mental health facility responded after Brenda hanged herself while a patient at the facility. The district court dismissed all federal claims with prejudice and dismissed the state law claims without prejudice, electing not to exercise jurisdiction over the state law claims. The court held that the circumstances did not trigger duties related to involuntary commitment nor did they give rise to a constitutional-level of care. The court also held that a claim based upon an improper medical treatment decision could not be brought pursuant to either the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., or the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. 701 et seq.

Whispering Oaks appealed the district court's rulings granting the Government's motion to compel information related to a healthcare fraud investigation. The court affirmed the judgment because the subpoena was issued pursuant to a lawful authority, for a lawful purpose, requesting information relevant to the lawful purpose, and the information sought was not unreasonable. Further, Whispering Oaks had not met its burden of showing that enforcement of the subpoenas at issue would be an abuse of the court's process.

Plaintiff sued Body Aesthetic and three of its surgeons, claiming that they invaded her privacy and breached the fiduciary duty of confidentiality they owed to her when they gave nude photographic images of her body to a newspaper, which published the images. A jury found in favor of plaintiff on her breach of fiduciary duty claim and awarded her compensatory damages. Plaintiff appealed and requested a new trial, claiming the magistrate judge abused the court's discretion by excluding certain critical evidence that would have likely increased the verdict amount. The court held that the district court abused its discretion in excluding testimony from the newspaper's writer and this abuse of discretion was substantially prejudicial to plaintiff's ability to show defendants' breach of fiduciary duty disregarded her privacy rights and adversely affected her claims for punitive damages. Therefore, the court vacated the district court's judgment on punitive damages and remanded for a new trial as to that issue.

Plaintiffs, citizens of New York, sued pharmaceutical companies (defendants) in New York state court claiming that defendants' hormone replacement therapy drugs caused plaintiffs to develop breast cancer. At issue was whether dismissal of plaintiffs' actions as time-barred under New York law precluded assertion of the same claims in a federal court diversity action in a State where the claims would not be time-barred. The court held that under New York claim preclusion law as articulated in Smith v. Russell Sage College and the many New York appellate decisions applying Russell Sage, the prior grant of summary judgment dismissing plaintiffs' New York claims as time-barred precluded the assertion of the same claims in these federal diversity actions in Minnesota. Therefore, the district court properly applied the Full Faith and Credit Statute in these cases, even if the New York Court of Appeals declined in the future to apply statute-of-limitations claim preclusion to more sympathetic plaintiffs.

Defendant was found guilty of two federal offenses: one count of aiding and abetting a violation of the so-called Medicare anti-kickback statute, in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7b(b)(2) and 18 U.S.C. 2, and one count of aiding and abetting the falsification of a document, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1519 and 2. Defendant raised several claims on appeal. The court held that the district court did not err in admitting testimony concerning statements made by defendant's wife during her interview with the FBI; in admitting evidence under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b) that defendant stole funds from previous employers in the healthcare industry; in denying defendant's motion to dismiss count one of the second superseding indictment, which charged a violation of the anti-kickback statute; by refusing to hold an evidentiary hearing on defendant's motion to suppress statements and to declare his proffer agreement unenforceable; and by granting in part the spouse's attorneys' motion to quash a subpoena requiring one of the representatives to produce his entire file regarding the representation of the spouse who was now deceased. The court also held that the district court's jury instructions regarding count one were not erroneous. The court held, however, that the district court erred in calculating the amount of loss under Guidelines 2B4.1 when it used the loss to the victims, rather than the benefit to defendant, as the measure of loss. Therefore, the court concluded that there was procedural error and defendant's sentence was vacated. The court finally vacated the restitution order and remanded for further proceedings. The court rejected defendant's remaining claims.

Plaintiff and his wife (the Kaplans) filed suit against Mayo Clinic Rochester, Inc., other Mayo entities (collectively, Mayo), and Mayo doctors David Nagorney and Lawrence Burgart, making a number of claims arising out of plaintiff's erroneous diagnosis of pancreatic cancer and plaintiff's surgery based on that diagnosis. The Kaplans subsequently appealed the judgments in favor of Mayo and Dr. Burgart on their negligent-failure-to-diagnose and contract claims. The court held that the error, if any, in admitting a certain medical file, which included insurance documents, into evidence did not affect the Kaplans' substantial rights and the Kaplans were not prejudiced by the district court's decision not to give a limiting instruction. The court agreed with the district court that the Kaplans' assertion that the biopsy slides might have been tampered with was based on rank speculation where they failed to present evidence that the slides had been changed in any way. The court also held that the Kaplans have shown no basis for granting them a new trial on their claim for negligent failure to diagnose. The court held, however, that the district court erred in granting judgment as a matter of law where the Kaplans have offered sufficient evidence in their case-in-chief to support a breach-of-contract claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings.