Health Law

• Aetna Health, Inc. v. Davila Plaintiff's state causes of action, alleging HMO's failure to exercise ordinary care for the plaintiff's health by failing to cover the cost of certain medical services, was completely preempted by ERISA section 502, and removable to federal court.
• Arkansas Dep't of Health & Human Servs. v. Ahlborn Federal Medicaid law does not authorize a state's department of health services to assert a lien on a settlement in an amount exceeding the portion of the tort claimant's settlement constituting reimbursement for medical payments made, and a federal anti-lien provision affirmatively prohibits it from doing so. State third-party liability provisions are unenforceable insofar as they compel a different conclusion.
• Atkins v. Virginia Supreme Court majority rules that executing mentally retarded criminals constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment" in violation of the U.S. Constitution's Eighth Amendment
• Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of N. New England A permanent injunction on enforcement of an abortion law requiring written parental notification prior to performance of an abortion on a pregnant minor is vacated and remanded for reconsideration of a more narrow remedy.
• Clark v. Arizona Due process does not prohibit Arizona's use of an insanity test stated solely in terms of the capacity to tell whether an act charged as a crime was right or wrong. Further, Arizona does not violate due process in restricting consideration of defense evidence of mental illness and incapacity to its bearing on a claim of insanity, thus eliminating its significance directly on the issue of the mental element of the crime charged.
• Gonzales v. Carhart In a challenge to the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act which proscribes a particular method of ending fetal life in the later stages of pregnancy, judgments enjoining enforcement of the Act are reversed as respondents did not demonstrate that the Act, as a facial matter, is void for vagueness, or that it imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception.
• Gonzales v. Oregon The Controlled Substances Act does not allow the Attorney General to prohibit doctors from prescribing regulated drugs for use in physician-assisted suicide under state law permitting the procedure.
• Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. v. Ayers Mental anguish damages resulting from the fear of developing cancer may be recovered under the Federal Employers' Liability Act, by a railroad worker suffering from actionable injury asbestosis caused by work-related asbestos exposure.
• Pacificare Health Sys., Inc. v. Book Physicians' claims that managed-health-care organizations violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) can be compelled to arbitration. Questions as to remedial provisions in an arbitration agreement and availability of RICO treble damages are premature.
• Reigel v. Medtronic The pre-emption clause enacted in the Medical Device Amendments of 1976 (MDA) bars common-law claims challenging the safety or effectiveness of a medical device given premarket approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
• Rode v. Wade A landmark U.S. Supreme Court case holding that a woman's right to decide whether to have a child is a fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
• Scheidler v. Nat'l Org. for Women A judgment for respondents, a nonprofit organization supporting the availability of abortions and clinics that perform abortions, is reversed in a case brought under the Hobbs Act, RICO, and other extortion-related laws against individuals and organizations opposing legal abortion.
• Thompson v. W. States Med. Ctr. The Food and Drug Modernization Act of 1997's prohibitions on soliciting prescriptions for, and advertising, compounded drugs, which are exempt from the FDA's standard drug approval requirements, amount to an unconstitutional restriction on commercial speech.
• U.S. v. Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Coop. The Controlled Substances Act, 21 USC 801 et seq., does not permit distribution of marijuana except for research purposes, and medical necessity is not a legally cognizable defense to violations of the Act.
• Wisconsin Dept. of Health and Family Servs. v. Blumer The "income-first" method used by most states to calculate Medicaid eligibility for nursing home residents, which requires that potential income transfers from the institutionalized spouse be deemed "community spouse's income" for purposes of determining such eligibility, does not conflict with the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, enacted to protect the financial well-being of spouses of institutionalized nursing home residents.

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