Medicaid Fraud Litigation - Thursday, May 12, 2011 12:49 - 0 Comments

The Mississippi AWP trial

Our firm recently completed the first Mississippi AWP (Average Wholesale Price) Medicaid Fraud trial in Brandon, Miss. We tried the case on behalf of the State of Mississippi. Dee Miles, Clay Barnett and Chad Stewart from our firm and our co-counsel Ronnie Musgrove, who is with the law firm of Copeland, Cook, Taylor and Bush, tried the case for two full weeks before the Chancery Court in Rankin County. Judge Thomas L. Zebert and Special Master Robert W. Sneed presided over the trial together. This first trial involved the pharmaceutical company Sandoz Inc. Even though we had settled with several drug manufacturers, this was the first case to actually be tried. There are more pending cases involving about 50 pharmaceutical company Defendants in cases in the Chancery Court. We believe that this trial, which was tried non-jury, went very well.

Attorney General Jim Hood, his staff, and the Division of Medicaid folks were most helpful in our trial preparation. It has been a great pleasure working with the Mississippi government on these very important cases. We are now in the process of the post-trial briefing and will submit Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law to the court for final consideration. This process will take approximately 45 days to complete and then the case will be fully submitted for a decision by Judge Zebert and Special Master Sneed. We anticipate that a decision will be made in about six to eight weeks. Hopefully, it will be a good result for Mississippi.