Epstein Becker Green attorneys filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon on behalf of four major health systems to challenge the state’s failure to ensure adequate access to care for people experiencing severe mental illness who are civilly committed.
In 2023, the district court dismissed the complaint in its entirety for lack of standing and denied leave to amend. The district court concluded that the health systems lacked Article III standing to assert their own claims because their injuries were not traceable to the state. The court further concluded that the health systems lacked third-party standing to assert claims on behalf of their patients because the interests of the health systems and their patients were not sufficiently aligned.
On June 5, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the lawsuit was wrongly dismissed, reversed the district court’s ruling on Article III standing, vacated its judgment on the issue of third-party standing, and remanded the case for reconsideration.
The case has now returned to the District Court for litigation to proceed.
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