Editor’s noteSpringfield Business Journal is pleased to present the fourth annual installment of Cornerstone Casework, designed to shed light on the work of local attorneys. We invited area law firms to outline significant cases or transactions completed within the last year.We rely on the participation of local law firms to put together this feature and we are planning the next installment in spring 2015.
Douglas, Haun & Heidemann PCCase: Class action lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Social Services
Craig Heidemann and Nathan Duncan of Douglas, Haun & Heidemann PC recently wrapped up a class action lawsuit against the Missouri Department of Social Services with a $7.6 million settlement benefiting nearly 14,000 class members.
The 11th largest recovery in Missouri in 2013, the case arose out of the state’s imposition of liens on personal injury settlements obtained by Medicaid recipients. Argued in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, the lawsuit Wilhoite v. Missouri Department of Social Services alleged Social Services illegally imposed liens on Medicaid recipients’ settlements in violation of federal law.
While the department is legally obligated to seek reimbursement for medical charges it paid on behalf of Medicaid recipients, federal law prohibits states from using certain methods to recover these funds.
In the Wilhoite case, the plaintiffs claimed the state recovered money from the settlements in excess of the amounts they received as reimbursement for their medical bills by asserting liens on their entire settlements. As part of the class action suit, DSS agreed to modify the procedures used to assert liens on Medicaid recipients’ recoveries.
Heidemann and Duncan negotiated the settlement following extensive briefing and argument, which resulted in the court’s determining that the department had violated federal law as interpreted by the Ahlborn court.
Heidemann
Duncan
Morrison, Webster & CarltonCase: Employer reimbursement for doctor-recommended treatment
In the Downing v. Sirloin Stockade case, Thomas Carlton of Morrison, Webster & Carlton was victorious in an employee health care case when the Southern District Missouri Court of Appeals ordered the employer insurer to reimburse the employee for all treatment including the doctor recommended surgeries.
The issue in this case was whether the employee was entitled to seek treatment and recover the cost of that treatment after the employer’s doctor recommended treatment, but employer/insurer failed to authorize that treatment pending more investigation.
The employee was forced to pay for her own back surgery after the employer/insurer declined authorization for the surgery four days prior to the surgery.
Downing stands for the proposition that if an employer’s doctor recommends treatment, an employee can get it once the employer/insurer has clearly denied treatment and there is no statutory time frame in which the employee must wait to receive treatment if causation is established.
Carlton
Neale & Newman LLPCase: Termination of biological parental rights and establishment of adoptive parental rights
Attorneys Richard Schnake of Neale & Newman LLP and Joseph Hensley of the Law Office of Hensley & Nicholas LLC in Joplin represented the adoptive parents in a four-year legal battle that established several legal principles governing the termination of parental rights and adoption. The case – In re Adoption of C.M., No. SD32228 – was argued twice in the Southern District Missouri Court of Appeals and once in the Missouri Supreme Court.
Lawyers for the adoptive parents successfully defended this appeal by the biological mother, a second-time illegal alien, to undo termination of her parental rights to a child she had not seen in nearly seven years.
The court twice terminated her rights for abandonment. Immigration authorities arrested her, and she pleaded guilty to and served prison time for a felony. By default, the child was left with relatives, themselves illegal, and then with others when the relatives abandoned him. A judge terminated her rights and allowed adoptive parents to adopt.
On appeal, the Missouri Supreme Court ordered a retrial. After a nine-day new trial, a different judge again terminated parental rights and granted the adoption. The judge found the mother received almost $10,000 from false income tax returns and she earns more than $1,300 per month above expenses, but she offered only $100 in child support – and then not until two years after she left prison.
The biological mother appealed again. The Court of Appeals affirmed in an 81-page opinion that rejected her 14 claims of error.
Schnake[[In-content Ad]]
