Legal News

Case Summaries

Class Actions

[02/08] DG v. DeVaughn
In a class action against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services claiming that the department's agency-wide foster care policies and practices exposed all class members to an impermissible risk of harm, the district court's order certifying a class is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs presented more than conclusory statements that defendants' agency-wide monitoring policies and practices, or lack thereof, created a risk of harm shared by the entire class; 2) due to the common risk of harm and the common underlying legal theory for asserting that risk, the district court acted within its discretion to find that typicality was satisfied; and 3) the injunction sought by plaintiffs applied to the proposed class as a whole without requiring differentiation between class members.

[02/08] Yokoyama v. Midland Nat'l Life Ins. Co.
In an action alleging deceptive representations in defendant's brochures, which promoted certain annuities as appropriate for seniors, a denial of class certification is reversed where the Hawaii Deceptive Practices Act did not require individual showings of reliance on the alleged misrepresentations.

[02/08] Ward v. Dixie Nat'l Life Ins. Co.
In a class action lawsuit against multiple insurance companies alleging that defendants violated a contractual promise under insurance policies to pay policyholders the "actual charges" of cancer treatments, judgment in favor of the plaintiffs is affirmed where: 1) under the three-step retroactivity analysis, the presumption against retroactivity operates to bar the application of the South Carolina statute to the claims in this case; and 2) defendants' remaining arguments are meritless.

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Elder Law

[02/05] Villano v. Waterman Convalescent Hosp., Inc.
In plaintiff's action against a convalescent hospital claiming she was admitted without her consent, judgment of the trial court is affirmed where, although a stipulated judgment is appealable, plaintiff cannot show that allegedly erroneous rulings were prejudicial.

[12/22] Massey v. Mercy Med. Center Redding
In plaintiff's negligence action against a nurse and the hospital that employed the nurse alleging that he sustained injury after falling from a walker because the nurse placed the plaintiff on the walker and left him unattended, judgment of the trial court is reversed in part where: 1) the question of nurse's alleged negligence for the fall poses a question of common knowledge, and therefore does not require expert opinion testimony; and 2) trial court's judgment that denied plaintiff's attempt to amend his complaint to add causes of action for battery, fraud and elder abuse is affirmed.

[12/21] Grace Healthcare of Benton v. US Dept. of Health & Hum. Servs.
In a petition for review of a civil monetary penalty imposed by the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services on petitioner nursing home for an "immediate jeopardy" violation of 42 C.F.R. section 483.13(c), which required nursing homes to thoroughly investigate all allegations of resident neglect or abuse, including injuries of unknown sources, the petition is granted where the Secretary's finding of the likely harm necessary to warrant an immediate-jeopardy-level finding was based on pure speculation and not supported by substantial evidence in the administrative record as a whole.

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