A federal judge in Santa Ana reaffirmed the disqualification of downtown’s Hueston Hennigan from the $160 million medical fraud case it brought three years ago on behalf of its now-former client, the California State Compensation Insurance Fund.
U.S. District Court Judge Andrew Guilford’s order paints a detailed picture of how the firm abdicated its responsibilities by representing two parties opposed to each other in the massive racketeering case.
In addition to representing the state insurance fund, Hueston Hennigan also represented Paul Randall in a related and concurrent criminal case brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in L.A.
The judge was not impressed.
“Trying to represent a criminal defendant while representing his victim seems to present obstacles so obvious and numerous as to defy complete delineation,” Guilford’s order reads.
The expansive 75-page ruling filed late Friday does not appear to omit many of the obstacles. Guilford’s order details how the concurrent representation of the state fund and Randall betrayed both parties and was anathema to the adversarial legal system.
“Good lawyers anticipate their opponent’s moves, jabs, and counters, and create appropriate offensive and defensive strategies of their own,” Guilford’s order reads. “But when an attorney represents both sides of a dispute, there’s really just one fighter in the ring shadowboxing. That lack of real opposition provides the lawyer perverse incentives to act in ways contrary to our nation’s notions of fairness and due process.”
Hueston Hennigan spokeswoman Lisa Richardson said in a statement that outside experts have consistently validated the firm’s actions in dealing with the conflict.
“After the court’s tentative ruling, State Fund obtained the guidance and opinions of two nationally recognized experts and a former state bar official; each has opined that conflicts were handled well within the ethical rules,” Richardson said. “No experts in this case have opined otherwise.”
The underlying case was filed in 2013 by the state fund and seeks to recoup some of the tens of million dollars it paid to a consortium of spinal surgery centers in Los Angeles who were engaged in widespread fraud. Nine members of the conspiracy, which was spearheaded by former Pacific Hospital of Long Beach administrator Michael Drobot Sr., have pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges including Randall. The civil racketeering case has added dozens of doctors and medical marketers as defendants.
