California Appellate Tracker

Kendall v. Scripps Health

October 31, 2017

A trial court does not abuse its discretion in denying class certification to a plaintiff in a suit challenging a hospital’s billing practices when any reasonable value determinations concerning the services provided to putative class members would substantially involve individual considerations regarding the patients' treatment, insurance, and charges.

Following Hale v. Sharp Healthcare (2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 50, this decision affirms an order denying class certification in a case challenging a hospital’s charging self-pay patients at Charge Master rates which were allegedly much higher that the rates charged patients with health insurance or Medicare/Medicaid reimbursement. First bills might be sent self-pay patients at Charge Master rates, but then many types of adjustments could be made and there was no administratively feasible way to cull out those exceptions. Furthermore, the court could not determine in the abstract whether the Charge Master rates were unconscionable as plaintiff alleged; reasonableness of hospital charges depend on a wide variety of factual circumstances that are not amenable to class treatment.

California Court of Appeal, Fourth District, Division One (Huffman, J.); October 18, 2017; 2017 WL 4791986.

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