Bearden v. Ballad Health, No. 20-5047 (6th Cir. 2020)
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The Tennessee Department of Health allowed two healthcare companies to merge into Ballad Health. Some of the board members of the resulting entity also had ties to another area healthcare organization, MEAC. The plaintiffs filed suit, alleging that Ballad, MEAC, and individual defendants had created an interlocking directorate in violation of the Clayton Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. 19. The defendants moved to dismiss the case for lack of standing. The plaintiffs sought to amend their complaint. Their proposed 29-page complaint included “allegations” that amounted to “colorful insults,” such as that MEAC “surrendered to [Ballad] much in the manner Marshal Petain surrendered France" to Hitler.
The Sixth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the case. Plaintiffs must allege the elements of standing as they would any other element of their suit. The plaintiffs failed to alleged injury in fact by showing that they suffered “an invasion of a legally protected interest” that is “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” The plaintiffs alleged legal conclusions, speculative risks, and the interests of the general public, saying nothing about what medical services they have sought in the past, what services they will seek in the future, or how the dissolution of MEAC would affect their access to these services. Nothing in the Clayton Act purports to create a novel injury in fact or an exception to the case-or-controversy requirement.
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