Lomeli v. State Department of Health Care Services

While Ethan Lomeli's guardian filed suit against medical care providers for his catastrophic birth injuries, Medi-Cal paid for his care before and during the lawsuit. After Lomeli settled with defendants, the Department moved to impose a lien on the settlement and the trial court granted the motion.The Court of Appeal affirmed and held that federal law did not block the Department's lien. The court rejected Lomeli's analysis from the dissent in Tristani ex rel. Karnes v. Richman (3rd Cir. 2011) 652 F.3d 360, 379–387, and adopted the majority's holding that two provisions of the Social Security Act did not bar state Medicare liens. The court also held that collateral estoppel did not bar the lien and the court's lien calculation of $267,159.60 was correct. In this case, substantial evidence supported the trial court's reality-based approach to determine the reasonable value of plaintiff's pretrial claim. View "Lomeli v. State Department of Health Care Services" on Justia Law