Ninth Circuit Panel Overturns Sutter Health’s Win in $400M Antitrust Suit
America ı By Rochdi Rais
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"After all, trials can't last forever and jurors can't always process 5, 10 or 20 years of evidence," the judge wrote. He added that it "can become stale, cumulative, confusing and distracting for jurors."
With the majority's opinion, the Ninth Circuit limits "the discretion that district courts enjoy in managing trials and second guess their ability to set reasonable evidentiary limits," Judge Bumatay said. "We reverse the jury verdict because we don't like the district court's choice of five years. But we offer no other guiding principles."
Matthew Cantor, counsel for the purchasers, told Law360 on Tuesday that it's a "significant case in healthcare" that spurred numerous amici briefs.
Importantly, Cantor said the lower court made instructional errors and excluded significant pieces of evidence that "buttressed" his clients' case.
"Those admissions demonstrated that Sutter not only had an anticompetitive purpose, but it had market power over the health plans," Cantor said.
Thanks to the court's errors, the purchasers were "substantially handicapped" and the jury was "substantially deprived" at trial, he said.
"We now look forward to going back to trial, submitting all this evidence to our jury and getting justice," Cantor said.
Meanwhile, Sutter said in a statement that it is "disappointed by today's divided appellate ruling overturning a unanimous jury verdict in our favor finding Sutter did not violate antitrust laws."
"Sutter Health intends to pursue all avenues to overturn the erroneous decision, as guided by our commitment to caring for our patients and continuing to provide them with high-quality, connected and affordable care," the health network said.
Purchasers first filed suit in 2012, claiming that Sutter took advantage of its dominance in Northern California when contracting with insurers, leading to artificially inflated premiums for the class members, including the City and County of San Francisco.
During the trial, jurors filled out a nine-question verdict form that asked whether Sutter sold inpatient hospital services that were tied to the more expensive hospital facilities and whether Sutter forced the class health plans to agree to contracts that prevented the plans from steering patients to lower-cost options.
The jury answered no to both questions, and thus no damages were owed to the class.
Sutter has faced similar allegations in the past, and in 2019, it shelled out $575 million to resolve allegations from California's attorney general, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Employers Benefit Trust and others.
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