Justia U.S. D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, two scientists, brought a suit to enjoin the National Institutes of Health ("NIH") from funding research using human embryonic stem cells ("ESCs") pursuant to the NIH's 2009 Guidelines ("Guidelines"). At issue was whether the preliminary injunction was properly granted where the district court concluded that plaintiffs were likely to succeed in showing that the Guidelines violated the Dickey-Wicker Amendment, an appropriations rider that barred federal funding for research in which a human embryo was destroyed. The court vacated the preliminary injunction and held that plaintiffs were unlikely to prevail because Dickey-Wicker was ambiguous and the NIH seemed reasonably to have concluded that, although Dickey-Wicker barred funding for the destructive act of deriving an ESC from an embryo, it did not prohibit funding a research project in which an ESC would be used.

Forsyth Memorial Hospital, Inc. and other providers (collectively "appellants") appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Secretary of Health and Human Services ("HHS") upholding the denial of their reimbursement claims arising from the merger of Presbyterian Health Services Corporation ("Presbyterian") and Carolina Medicorp, Inc. ("Carolina"). At issue was whether the denial of the reimbursement claims was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion, contrary to law, or unsupported by substantial evidence. The court affirmed the denial of the reimbursement claims and held that the district court properly concluded that it was neither arbitrary and capricious nor contrary to law for the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services ("Administrator") to find that appellants were not entitled to reimbursement where, in the merger between Carolina and Presbyterian, no bona fide sale took place and the parties were related.