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Nevada has tentatively agreed to pay $400,000 to the City and County of San Francisco to settle allegations that the state wrongfully and intentionally bused psychiatric patients to the city and declined to pay the costs connected with their care…The deal, if approved by the Nevada Board of Examiners and a similar board in San Francisco, is expected to end an expensive legal battle that has lasted more than two years…The settlement will bring an amicable resolution to this matter,"…

A group of individuals has slapped two D.C. hospitals with a class action lawsuit, alleging that their charges for requesting medical records -- ranging from $1,168 to $2,500 -- violate state and federal regulations...alleged the hospitals collected "illegal and grossly excessive charges" for copies of the patients' medical records, which were collected by a third-party vendor HealthPort,...Counsel for the hospitals,...said that federal law did not apply to third-party requests...hospitals and HealthPort overcharged medical records by a whopping $7 million.

Chief District Judge David Barker today denied a request to disqualify the judge assigned to a medical malpractice case against Summerlin Hospital…Ruben White, who claims malpractice led to the tuberculosis-related deaths of his wife and twin daughters at the hospital, had asked District Judge Joe Hardy Jr. to withdraw from the case because of an appearance of impropriety…. The court finds that a reasonable person, knowing all the facts, would not harbor doubts about Judge Hardy's impartiality…White argued in a motion for recusal that Hardy's father, Republican state Sen. Joe Hardy, has an economic interest in the outcome of the case. White indicated he plans to file a motion in the case asking that the state's cap on medical malpractice damages be declared unconstitutional, and he argued that the judge's father has been "an active opponent" of removing the cap.

Hedge-fund manager Kyle Bass may have hit some recent speed bumps in his quest to challenge pharma patents through a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office review system. But he's not giving up… not to be deterred, refiled the two Ampyra challenges…with more documentation, and he filed two new challenges against the drug's other IP shields, too… Bass has been using the inter partes review system to wage war on patents from companies such as Celgene, Shire, Biogen and Acorda that he thinks aren't up to snuff,...Bass and his partners want "to line their own pockets at the expense of public pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders,"…

…last January, the total verdict for the pharmacist plaintiff who complained he was discharged in violation of the ADA for refusing to provide immunizations in light of his documented fear of needles was upwards of $2.6 million. On September 23, the Court responded to a defense motion for judgment as a matter of law by largely finding that the jury had a sufficient basis for awarding back pay, front pay, and some amount of compensatory damages. However, the amount of compensatory damages was $900,000, and the Court agreed with the defendant that this amount was excessive. The Court ordered a remittitur of the compensatory damages to $125,000...

Walgreen Co.’s persisting failure to remove expired sales tags from its shelves deceives customers and violates a 2014 settlement that sought to resolve the matter in Missouri, the state’s attorney general argued…in asking a state court to punish the pharmacy chain…Attorney General Chris Koster filed court documents asking a judge to hold the nation’s largest pharmacy retailer in contempt of the settlement and issue steeper fines, including up to $5,000 for each expired tag. Koster said that since July, undercover investigators have found a total of more than 1,300 shelf tags displaying sales prices that had expired...

On August 7, 2014, Federal District Court …blocked the Food and Drug Administration from enforcing restrictions on the marketing and promotion of off-label use of the drug icosapent ethyl (Vascepa),..If the case heralds the future of jurisprudence, responsibility for the oversight of the truthfulness of pharmaceutical promotions may shift from the nation’s leading science-based regulatory agency, the FDA, to the courts. If it does, the market for medications in the 21st century may revert to a time of more claims and less evidence to guide clinical care… Judges should refrain from using the First Amendment to undermine core regulatory functions.

Millennium Health LLC is struggling to wrangle enough support for a debt restructuring plan that would allow it to settle a federal billing probe by a deadline this week,… Millennium is negotiating the terms for a bankruptcy filing at the same time that it’s finalizing a $275 million settlement of a federal investigation into its billing practices,..The Department of Justice has said it must have a plan to pay the sum by the end of this week…

Reno Gazette-Journal filed a lawsuit Friday against the city of Sparks in an effort to compel them to release the names of medical marijuana business licensees...RGJ believes transparency in this matter is in the public’s interest…legal challenge is based on the belief that transparency in government…should prevail…lawsuit comes after an RGJ reporter filed a public records request with the city of Sparks for the business licenses related to medical marijuana facilities…The documents returned to the RGJ, however, included redacted names associated with the business licensees...Sparks'...assistant city attorney argued he was upholding state confidentiality laws protecting people involved with the marijuana industry.

Pacira Pharmaceuticals Inc….filed a lawsuit seeking a court order allowing it to promote its post-surgery pain drug, Exparel (bupivacaine), for a wide range of surgeries, which the Food and Drug Administration opposes…Pacira contends that its own marketing is not for off-label use…Exparel,… is approved for administration into the site of surgery to produce post-surgery pain relief…approval was based on studies of its use in bunionectomies and hemorrhoidectomies,…Pacira, however, has promoted it for use in all kinds of surgeries.