卫生保健诉讼

Sidley’s Healthcare lawyers are actively involved in a wide array of complex civil litigation. The suits we handle range from disputes with a single governmental agency to nationwide multidistrict class actions. We represent clients through all stages in the litigation process, from pre-trial investigation through trial to appeals before state and federal courts, including the United States Supreme Court.

Class Actions. In recent years, healthcare providers and companies have been frequent targets of class action litigation. The firm’s longstanding depth in class action defense, combined with our substantive experience in healthcare issues, has enabled us to provide particularly effective representation for clients faced with the particular challenges of complex healthcare litigation. Lawyers in each of our domestic offices have represented clients in class actions on subjects ranging from antitrust to consumer fraud to managed care contracting and reimbursement.

Antitrust. Antitrust has long been a particular strength of our Healthcare Litigation practice. We have successfully represented providers in many of the leading healthcare antitrust cases, including matters brought by the Federal Trade Commission, the U.S. Department of Justice, state attorneys general and private litigants. Our lawyers combine a strong background in the complexities of pharmaceutical and healthcare financing and delivery with extensive experience in the substantive laws governing mergers, price-fixing, monopolization, tying, price discrimination and other aspects of antitrust law.

False Claims Act/Reimbursement. Qui tam litigation under the False Claims Act (and its state-level counterparts) presents a distinct set of procedural and substantive issues. Our litigators have extensive experience dealing with the intricacies of these laws. Among other victories, we represented the prevailing party in Vermont Agency of Natural Resources v. United States ex rel. Stevens, in which the Supreme Court considered the application of the False Claims Act to the States.

Health Policy. Sidley lawyers regularly appear before trial and appellate courts on major health policy issues. For example, our firm represented the prevailing parties in Pegram v. Herdrich, the leading Supreme Court case on the application of ERISA to disputes concerning managed care cost incentives. We have submitted amicus curiae briefs on behalf of healthcare clients to the Supreme Court and other appellate courts on such issues as medical privacy, patentability of methods of medical testing and the right to die.

Among other current litigation matters:

• We represent a major pharmaceutical company In re Pharmaceutical Industry Average Wholesale Price Litigation, MDL 1456 (D. Mass.), a series of class actions brought on behalf of third party payers and consumers alleging that drug companies deliberately inflated their list prices in order to market their products more effectively to physicians and pharmacies. We also represent the company in related suits brought by state attorneys general in state court.
• We represent additional pharmaceutical companies in Attorney General actions challenging pharmaceutical pricing.
• We represent a major manufacturer in class actions alleging consumer fraud in the marketing of a leading prescription drug. We achieved dismissal of several of these claims in 2006.
• We represent a number of major drug manufacturers in qui tam suits in federal court alleging fraudulent marketing of pharmaceutical products.
• We represent a medical device manufacturer in antitrust suits alleging that the company sought to monopolize the market for devices used in minimally invasive surgery by leveraging its alleged monopoly in sutures through the use of “bundled” contracts. In July 2006, the first of these suits went to trial and the jury returned a verdict in our client’s favor.
• We represent a drug manufacturer in a purported class action brought under the antitrust laws alleging exclusion of pharmaceutical secondary wholesalers.

• We represented a major national medical association in an antitrust action challenging the residency match program, by which medical school graduates are assigned to programs in graduate medical education. In 2006, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit against our client.
• We represent an academic medical center in a qui tam action relating to the operation of the hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit.
• We successfully represented a national medical company in a Federal Trade Commission investigation of a consummated merger. After over four years of investigation, the Commission closed the investigation.
• We represent a national provider of hospital-based physician services in litigation challenging the company’s integrated model for providing services as a violation of state law. In 2006, we won summary judgment for the client on claims of tortious interference with contract and unfair competition.
• We represent a major national medical association in an antitrust suit challenging the association’s decision not to assign a specific medical code to a medical device.
• We represent a medical diagnostic imaging company in an antitrust suit filed in federal court in New York.
• We represent a leading provider of hospitalist services in litigation involving the enforcement of restrictive covenants with physicians.

Our team features lawyers with decades of experience as litigators, counselors or both. A number of our lawyers previously served in senior government posts, including policy advisors to both Democratic and Republican Secretaries of HHS and legal counsel to the European Commission.