Friday, September 4, 2009

The Rising Judicial Chorus: Judge Young

William G. Young is a judge for the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts; he was a 1986 Reagan appointee and served as chief judge from 1999 to 2005.

In 1997 Judge Young issued an opinion in a case called Andrews-Clarke v. Travelers Insurance Company. In a nutshell, Richard Clarke drank too much, and sought treatment for his alcoholism, which was a covered benefit under his ERISA-governed Travelers insurance policy. Travelers and its utilization review contractor, Greenspring, refused to authorize the in-patient stay requested by his doctors, and Mr. Clarke was released ahead of schedule. He tried to commit suicide, was readmitted to a detoxification facility, and was again released ahead of schedule due to Travelers’ and Greenspring’s refusal to authorize the requested length of stay.

Here’s what happened next, as described by Judge Young:
By now, it was tragically apparent to everyone but Travelers and its agent, Greenspring, that Clarke was a danger to himself and perhaps others. After conducting a commitment hearing, the Haverhill District Court so found, and ordered Clarke committed to a thirty-day detoxification and rehabilitation program. The court referred the issue of Clarke's placement to the Court Clinic, which in turn sought Greenspring's approval for an insured admission to a private hospital. When Greenspring - despite the fact that enrollment in a thirty-day inpatient detoxification program is a defined benefit of the Travelers insurance policy - incredibly refused to authorize such a private admission, the court ordered Clarke committed to the Southeastern Correctional Center at Bridgewater for his detoxification and rehabilitation.

Clarke's life now spiralled inexorably down and out of control. While a patient at Bridgewater, he was forcibly raped and sodomized by another inmate in his unit. He received little in the way of therapy or treatment. After his release from Bridgewater on October 25, 1994, he made his way back to Haverhill where his wife and four minor children still lived. Diane Andrews-Clarke told Clarke that he could return to the marital home only if he remained sober. Unable to do so without hospitalization, Clarke began a three-week drinking binge.

Richard Clarke, age 41, committed suicide on November 12, 1994. His wife, Ms. Andrews-Clarke, sued Travelers for wrongful death, and the case ended up before Judge Young. We’ll let him take it from there (I have omitted footnotes, but you can find them in the original case report; the citation is below):

Travelers and Greenspring promptly removed her case to this Court and then, just as promptly, asked this Court to throw her out without hearing the merits of her claim.

This, of course, is ridiculous. The tragic events set forth in Diane Andrews-Clarke's Complaint cry out for relief. Clarke was the named beneficiary of a health insurance policy offered through an employee benefit plan. That policy expressly provided coverage for certain medical and psychiatric treatments, including enrollment in a thirty-day inpatient alcohol detoxification and rehabilitation program. Doctors at several hospitals, and even the courts of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, determined that Clarke was in need of such treatment, but the insurer and its agent, the utilization review provider, repeatedly and arbitrarily refused to authorize it. As a consequence of their failure to pre-approve - whether willful, or the result of negligent medical decisions made during the course of utilization review - Clarke never received the treatment he so desperately required, suffered horribly, and ultimately died needlessly at age forty-one.

Under traditional notions of justice, the harms alleged - if true - should entitle Diane Andrews-Clarke to some legal remedy on behalf of herself and her children against Travelers and Greenspring. Consider just one of her claims-breach of contract. This cause of action - that contractual promises can be enforced in the courts - pre-dates Magna Carta. It is the very bedrock of our notion of individual autonomy and property rights. It was among the first precepts of the common law to be recognized in the courts of the Commonwealth and has been zealously guarded by the state judiciary from that day to this. Our entire capitalist structure depends on it.

Nevertheless, this Court had no choice but to pluck Diane Andrews-Clarke's case out of the state court in which she sought redress (and where relief to other litigants is available) and then, at the behest of Travelers and Greenspring, to slam the courthouse doors in her face and leave her without any remedy.

This case, thus, becomes yet another illustration of the glaring need for Congress to amend ERISA to account for the changing realities of the modern health care system. Enacted to safeguard the interests of employees and their beneficiaries, ERISA has evolved into a shield of immunity that protects health insurers, utilization review providers, and other managed care entities from potential liability for the consequences of their wrongful denial of health benefits.

***

Does anyone care?

Do you?

The case again is Andrews-Clarke v. Travelers Insurance Company, and the citation is 984 F.Supp. 49 (D.Mass. 1997).

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