BLUE CROSS/BLUE SHIELD v. RUBIN
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals today released an opinion in BLUE CROSS/BLUE SHIELD v. RUBIN, No. 05-56261, a federal appeal. The panel consisted of Stephen Reinhardt and Jay S. Bybee, Circuit Judges, and Larry A. Burns, District Judge.
REINHARDT, Circuit Judge:
This case arises out of a scheme allegedly entered into by the defendants to fraudulently bill Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans (”Blue Cross”) for unnecessary medical services. Plaintiffs allege that defendants and their associates enticed individuals from around the country into undergoing unnecessary treatments at the defendant medical clinics by offering cash payments and beach vacations. Plaintiffs allege that they were then billed for the unnecessary procedures and, as a result, paid millions of dollars to defendants. In addition to the civil suit, several of the defendants are currently facing criminal prosecution in state or federal court or both. The events leading to this appeal began when a number of defendants, none of whom had been indicted in the criminal proceedings, requested stays of the civil proceeding on the basis that discovery in the civil suit implicated their Fifth Amendment rights. The district court granted these stays. It subsequently granted stays to most of the other individual defendants and to corporate defendants who argued that they would be prejudiced if required to defend against the civil suit without discovery against the individual defendants who had received stays. The precise duration of the stays is difficult to discern, as the district court granted the motions without mentioning duration, but most of the defendants . . .