Attorney General William Tong’s office filed an amicus brief Tuesday urging the court not to deny standing to plantiffs in a class action lawsuit against Hartford HealthCare.Â
The plaintiffs, a group of patients, claim HHC has used anticompetitive methods to engage in restraint of trade, unlawful monopolization and unfair methods of competition. They’re seeking damages and other relief under the Connecticut Antitrust Act and the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act.
The plaintiffs claim HHC has formed a monopoly on acute inpatient hospital services in many regions of the state, and has abused that monopoly by using it to extract higher prices from insurers, employers and patients.
The plaintiffs say HHC’s alleged actions have caused themselves and other Connecticut residents enrolled in commercial health plans to pay “drastically inflated prices
for their healthcare.”
HHC denies those claims and, on Dec. 23, 2022, filed a motion to dismiss the case. HHC argues that the plaintiffs lack standing because their injuries are not “direct.”
“At best, they are highly remote and derivative of alleged injuries that could theoretically be experienced by healthcare insurers or employers that paid the insurers,” the motion to dismiss said.
A ruling on the motion to dismiss is pending in Hartford Superior Court.
In the amicus filing, Tong urged the court not to deny standing to the plaintiffs because the Connecticut Antitrust Act allows them to sue as “indirect purchasers.”
While federal court precedent bars indirect purchasers from suing under the Sherman Antitrust Act, Tong points to a law passed by the state’s General Assembly in 2018 that specifically allows them to recover damages for antitrust violations.
“The General Assembly unequivocally stated its intent to permit indirect purchasers as proper plaintiffs to seek relief under the CT Antitrust Act,” according to the amicus brief.
Tong’s brief went on to say that the state takes no position on any other factual or legal issues in the case.
A hearing on the motion to dismiss is set for May 11.
In a statement about Tong’s amicus brief, Hartford HealthCare said: “In his recently filed brief, the Attorney General wrote for the limited purpose of addressing Conn. Gen. Stat. § 35-46a and explicitly took no position on any other factual or legal issues in the case. We continue to believe that this lawsuit has no merit, and we await the court’s action.”
Hartford HealthCare is also being sued by St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center, which claims the healthcare system and its subsidiaries have tried to create a monopoly by acquiring physician networks and demanding that they refer their patients only to HHC physicians.
The lawsuit is pending in U.S. District Court in New Haven.
