Judge tosses case against St. Thomas | Tennessean | 2.10.05
Saint Thomas Hospital this week scored a victory in a lawsuit that accused the nonprofit hospital of not living up to a promise to care for the poor in return for being exempted from paying taxes.
A local federal judge dismissed all federal claims against the Nashville hospital and declined to retain jurisdiction over the state claims. The plaintiffs, meanwhile, plan to take the matter to state court.
Similar dismissals have occurred in about a dozen of the 68 federal lawsuits filed in the past year on behalf of uninsured and indigent patients against nonprofit hospitals nationwide by a group led by Mississippi lawyer Richard Scruggs. Scruggs successfully sued the tobacco industry in the 1990s. The local suit challenged billing and collections policies at Saint Thomas, accusing the hospital of charging uninsured patients inflated rates and then aggressively seeking to collect on the charges. …
In a conference call Tuesday, Scruggs said he was opening a second legal offensive against the hospitals in state courts.
He accused the hospitals, including Saint Thomas, of abusing their 501(c)3 tax-exempt status by not providing charitable care to indigent patients. ”The exemptions are worth far more than the true charity care they give,” he said. …
”You’ve got a very large, successful, wealthy law firm that decided hospitals are their next targets,” Nemzoff said. ”I don’t think anybody knows whether they’re going to win any of these cases. But it should be very obvious that they’re not going away.”
Last year, Saint Thomas Chief Executive Tom Beeman said the hospital provides an average of $45 million a year in charity care and doesn’t use aggressive tactics to collect bills — such as placing liens on patients’ property — as Scruggs’ lawsuit alleges.
National Uninsured Patients Class Action Litigation Against Defendant Nonprofit Hospital Systems and Hospitals Launches Second Major Legal Offensive Through State Courts | PRNewswire | 2.8.05
…At present, the litigation against nonprofit hospital systems and hospitals names a total of 68 cases in 23 states, involving 60 nonprofit hospital systems. Of these cases, 43 are pending in federal courts and 25 are in state courts. …
Website: http://www.nfplitigation.com