Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

The Court of Appeals rejected Plaintiffs’ argument that an individual has a fundamental constitutional right to aid-in-dying as defined by Plaintiffs and also rejected Plaintiffs’ assertion that the State’s prohibition on assisted suicide is not rationally related to legitimate state interests.Plaintiffs filed this action requesting declaratory and injunctive relief to permit “aid-in-dying,” which would allow a mentally competent, terminally ill patient to obtain a prescription from a physician to cause death. The Attorney General filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that Plaintiffs failed to state a cause of action and did not present a justiciable controversy. Supreme Court granted the motion. The Appellate Division affirmed as modified, declaring that the assisted suicide statutes provide a valid statutory basis to prosecute physicians who provide aid-in-dying and that the statutes do not violate the New York Constitution. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding (1) the State Constitution’s Due Process Clause does not encompass a fundamental right to physician-assisted suicide; and (2) the State’s prohibition is rationally related to a number of legitimate state interests, and heightened scrutiny is unwarranted. View "Myers v. Schneiderman" on Justia Law

The Medical Board of California did not violate patients’ right to privacy under Cal. Const. art. I, 1 when it obtained data from the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES), California’s prescription drug monitoring program, without a warrant or subpoena supported by good cause during the course of investigating the patients’ physician, Dr. Alwin Carl Lewis. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeal, which determined that the Board’s actions did not involve a significant intrusion on a privacy interest protected by the state Constitution’s privacy provision and, even if there was an invasion of privacy, it was justified. The Supreme Court held that even assuming the Board’s actions constituted a serious intrusion on a legally protected privacy interest, its review of Lewis’s patients’ CURES records was justified by the state’s dual interest in protecting the public from the unlawful use and diversion of a particularly dangerous class of prescription drugs and protecting patients from negligent or incompetent physicians. View "Lewis v. Superior Court of Los Angeles County" on Justia Law

A patient who qualifies for the medical use of marijuana and has been terminated from her employment because she tested positive for marijuana as a result of her lawful medical use of marijuana may seek a civil remedy against her employer through claims of handicap discrimination in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B. The Supreme Judicial Court thus reversed the dismissal of Plaintiff’s claim for handicap discrimination and related claims under chapter 151B but affirmed the allowance of the motion to dismiss as to the counts claiming an implied private cause of action under the medical marijuana act and wrongful termination in violation of public policy, holding that there is no implied statutory private cause of action under the medical marijuana act and that Plaintiff failed to state a claim for wrongful termination in violation of public policy. View "Barbuto v. Advantage Sales & Marketing, LLC" on Justia Law

Parrino worked as a pharmacist for NRS. He was responsible for preparing medications, mainly inhalers. After leaving NRS, Parrino was contacted by the FDA and FBI, which were investigating reports that NRS was filling prescription medications for Pulmicort, a steroid used for the treatment of asthma, with a sub-potent amount of the active ingredient. Parrino cooperated and pleaded guilty to introducing misbranded drugs into interstate commerce, 21 U.S.C. 331(a), 352(a), and 18 U.S.C. 2, a strict liability misdemeanor. Parrino was sentenced to one year of probation and ordered to pay $14,098.24 in restitution for Medicaid and Medicare payments. The Department of Health and Human Services notified Parrino that it was required to exclude him from participation in any capacity in the Medicare, Medicaid, and all federal healthcare programs for at least five years, under 42 U.S.C. 1320a-7(a). Rejecting Parrino’s argument that he lacked any mens rea to commit a crime and was convicted of a strict liability misdemeanor, an ALJ and the Appeals Board upheld HHS’s decision. The Sixth Circuit affirmed dismissal of Parrino’s suit, finding that HHS’s action affected no substantive due process right because “health care providers are not the intended beneficiaries of the federal health care programs” and that the decision to exclude Parrino was “not so shocking as to shake the foundations of this country.” View "Parrino v. Price" on Justia Law

After plaintiff's son was denied coverage related to gender reassignment services and surgery, plaintiff filed suit against Essentia and the health insurance plan's third party administrator for sex based discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA), and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Eighth Circuit held that plaintiff was not discriminated against on the basis of her own sex, and the protections of Title VII and the MHRA do not extend to discrimination based on her son's sex. Therefore, the court affirmed as to this issue. The court reversed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's ACA claim based on lack of Article III standing, holding that plaintiff has alleged an injury cognizable under Article III because she contends that defendants' discriminatory conduct denied her the benefits of her insurance policy and forced her to pay out of pocket for some of her son's prescribed medication. View "Tovar v. Essentia Health" on Justia Law

The Eleventh Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment to defendants on plaintiff's suit alleging unlawful discrimination because plaintiffs could not effectively communicate with hospital staff in the absence of auxiliary aids or services. The Eleventh Circuit held that plaintiffs had Article III standing to seek prospective injunctive relief; rejected the district court's substantive standard for liability; and concluded that for an effective-communication claim brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (RA), 29 U.S.C. 794, there is no requirement that a plaintiff show actual deficient treatment or to recount exactly what plaintiff did not understand. Rather, the relevant inquiry is whether the hospitals' failure to offer an appropriate auxiliary aid impaired the patient's ability to exchange medically relevant information with hospital staff. In this case, plaintiffs have offered sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment where the record demonstrated that plaintiffs' ability to exchange medically relevant information was impaired. On remand, the district court was directed to consider the deliberate-indifference issue in regards to monetary damages. View "Silva v. Baptist Health South Florida" on Justia Law

Psychotherapist-patient privilege does not protect subpoenaed records from disclosure to the Department of Consumer Affairs, because Business and Professions Code section 2225, a statute enacted after codification of the privilege, permits disclosure of records that the privilege would otherwise shelter when the Department and the Board are investigating potential improper prescribing of controlled substances by a psychiatrist. Furthermore, a psychiatric patient's constitutional right to privacy requires the Department to demonstrate a subpoena for the patient's records is supported by a compelling interest and that the information demanded is "relevant and material" to the particular investigation being conducted. In this case, the State had a compelling interest in investigating excessive or otherwise improper prescribing of controlled substances, and petitioner's declaration established most of the records demanded by the subpoena were relevant and material to that investigation. However, further narrowing of the Department's subpoenas was required to comport with the weighty privacy interests at stake. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals granted the petition in part and vacated in part. View "Cross v. Superior Court" on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from the parties' dispute over the precise language used in "corrective statements" cigarette manufacturers were ordered to disseminate. The district court's remedy requiring the manufacturers to issue corrective statements complied with the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1964(a), because the manufacturers would be impaired in making false and misleading assurances about cigarettes if simultaneously required to tell the truth. In this case, the court held that the modified preambles satisfy RICO. Therefore, the court rejected the manufacturers' argument that the only reason to prefer the government's proposal is to taint manufacturers with implications of past wrongdoing. In regard to the manufacturers' First Amendment challenge, the court concluded that the preamble requirements are reasonably related to the government's interest in preventing deception of consumers. Here, the preambles are confined to purely factual and uncontroversial information, geared toward thwarting prospective efforts by manufacturers to either directly mislead consumers or capitalize on their prior deceptions by continuing to advertise in a manner that builds on consumers' existing misperceptions. In regard to the manufacturers' challenge to the topic descriptions in the preambles to Statements C and D, the court concluded that the manufacturers waived its argument as to Statement D, but the language in Statement C was not previously considered and is indeed backward-looking, because it implies that the manufacturers previously sold and advertised cigarettes in such a way. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, remanding for further proceedings. View "United States v. Philip Morris USA Inc." on Justia Law

After Henry B. was admitted to Pen Bay Medical Center (PBMC), PBMC staff applied to involuntarily commit Henry pursuant to the “white paper” procedures of Me. Rev. Stat. 34-B, 3863(5-A). After a commitment hearing, the district court ordered that Henry be submit to involuntary hospitalization for up to 120 days. The superior court affirmed the district court’s judgment of involuntary commitment. Henry appealed, arguing that he was not provided with effective assistance of counsel. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding (1) individuals subject to involuntary commitment proceedings in Maine have the right to effective representation of counsel, and the Strickland standard applies for courts reviewing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel in involuntary commitment proceedings; and (2) Henry was not deprived of the effective assistance of counsel in this case. View "In re Henry B." on Justia Law

Diana Lemke challenged the trial court’s granting of summary judgment in favor of respondents Sutter Roseville Medical Center, Peter V. Hull, M.D., Debbie Madding, and Julie Fralick (collectively Sutter Roseville). Lemke was terminated from her employment as a registered nurse at Sutter Roseville after improper administration of narcotics to a patient and failure to properly monitor and document the patient’s condition. In response, Lemke filed an action against Sutter Roseville in which she claimed retaliation for whistleblowing, disability discrimination, failure to accommodate a disability, failure to engage in an interactive process, retaliation, harassment, failure to prevent retaliation, and defamation. On appeal, Lemke addressed only her causes of action for retaliation, failure to prevent retaliation, and defamation, contending: (1) there was a triable issue of material fact as to whether Sutter Roseville’s stated reasons for terminating her employment were pretextual; (2) the same reasons establishing her claim for retaliation also compel reversal of the trial court’s dismissal of her claim for failure to prevent retaliation; (3) she presented sufficient evidence to demonstrate triable issues of material fact for her claim of defamation; and (4) the trial court erred in its evidentiary rulings related to the motion for summary judgment. After review, the Court of Appeal concluded Lemke did not meet her burden to show Sutter Roseville’s stated reasons were merely a pretext for retaliating against her. Furthermore, the Court determined the trial court properly dismissed her claim of failure to prevent retaliation. The Court affirmed in all other respects. View "Lemke v. Sutter Roseville Medical Center" on Justia Law