Hooper, Kearney and Macklin on Cutting Edge Topics in the False Claims Act
The CFPB on April 30, 2025, filed a joint stipulation to dismiss its appeal pending before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit regarding an agency policy that expands the scope of antidiscrimination oversight....more
President Donald Trump issued an executive order (EO) titled "Zero-Based Regulatory Budgeting to Unleash American Energy" that directs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and three other federal agencies to...more
Our Health Care and Health Care Litigation Groups examine a policy move by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that will allow the department to forgo notice and comment procedures for many of its regulations....more
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Feb. 28, 2025, issued a policy statement limiting the circumstances under which HHS agencies must publish proposed rules for public comment before the rules are...more
The policy statement aims to bring more rapid action on personnel and management decisions and empowers HHS and each of its offices and subagencies to promulgate or rescind certain rules without a period of notice and comment...more
On January 2, 2024, McDermott filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of the ERISA Industry Committee (ERIC) and the United States Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) in United Behavioral Health v. David K., No. 23-586, in the US...more
Apple Inc. v. Vidal, Appeal No. 2022-1249 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 13, 2023) In our Case of the Week, the Federal Circuit allowed Apple’s challenge to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (“PTAB”) Fintiv rules to proceed, at least...more
The battle over crypto 401(k)s reached a fever pitch last week as 401(k) provider ForUsAll Inc. filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in a Washington, D.C. federal court on June 2, alleging that federal...more
Recently I read a news release that the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals had issued a mandamus order against the U.S. EPA. Mandamus order? My mind went back to law school and Marbury v. Madison, which may have been the...more
The CFPB is now accepting petitions for agency action submitted directly by members of the American public, according to a press release and a new portal that was opened on February 16, 2022. In support of this change, the...more
As November came to an end, federal courts across the country continue to examine and issue preliminary rulings on challenges to various COVID vaccine mandates put in place by the Biden Administration. At the beginning of...more
On November 8, 2021, the Eighth Circuit affirmed a district court order that denied an attempt to preliminarily block the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network’s (OPTN) policy changing the manner in which donor kidneys are...more
In a major blow to the Trump administration, a federal court recently struck down two immigration rules that would limit the ability of skilled foreign workers to obtain H-1B visas. In a December 1 ruling, the U.S. District...more
Trump v. Sierra Club, No. 20-138: This case concerns the Acting Secretary of Defense’s transfer of funds pursuant to Section 8005 of the Defense Appropriations Act to make funds available to construct border fences along the...more
On Saturday, May 30, 2020, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson granted summary judgment in favor of the AFL-CIO based on its challenge that the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or the “Board”) was not permitted to revise rules...more
In this week’s episode, Adam Cooper discusses the Supreme Court’s decision in Azar v. Allina Health Services, as well as a related memorandum issued in late 2019 by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) that...more
A few days before Thanksgiving, the news media published an internal memo by the Office of General Counsel (OGC) at the US Department of Health and Human Services (Department) to officials at the Centers for Medicare and...more
On October 31, 2019, the Office of General Counsel for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued an important memo from Kelly M. Cleary, CMS Chief Legal Officer, and Brenna E. Jenny, Deputy General...more
On October 9, 2019, President Trump issued an Executive Order aimed to curb agencies, such as CMS, from using informal guidance documents as de facto rules that have the binding effect of law. In a press conference...more
The Medicare Program, established in 1965, initially seemed simple: provide health care for senior citizens by paying hospitals and doctors directly for the care the seniors required. Initially, there were two parts to...more
In a major win for providers that serve a disproportionate share of indigent patients, the Supreme Court today upheld the D.C. Circuit’s earlier decision invalidating CMS’s policy to treat beneficiaries enrolled in Part C...more
In a previously unannounced development, the U.S. Department of the Treasury issued a policy statement on the tax regulatory process on March 5, 2019, announcing significant changes related to regulations and subregulatory...more
On January 15, 2019, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Azar v. Allina Health Services, a prominent case involving a challenge by hospitals over when Medicare’s instructions to its contractors impact a “substantive...more
On January 15, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a hotly-contested case involving a challenge by hospitals over when Medicare’s instructions to its contractors impact a “substantive legal standard” and thus...more
Is the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS or the government) required to engage in notice and comment rulemaking when it changes a requirement that has an important impact on hospitals' reimbursement? As we reported...more