Kenney Orthopedics, Lexington, Kentucky, earned a victory against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), through the Lexington law firm of Morris & Morris.
Despite veterans’ demands, from congressional inquiries to investigations, that they be allowed to receive treatment from Kenney Orthopedics, the VA and its employees had refused to allow veterans to exercise their legal right to use the provider of their choice, according to a press release issued by the law firm.
Kenney Orthopedics challenged those actions. As a result, both sides engaged in months of protracted negotiations before finally reaching a resolution.
To obtain dismissal of all pending claims, the United States has agreed to pay Kenney Orthopedics an undisclosed amount of money, as well agreeing to the firm’s immediate return to the VA’s “preferred provider” list.
To reach that settlement, Morris & Morris began actions in multiple courts in response to the wrongful conduct of the VA against Kenney Orthopedics, by filing two separate actions before the United States Court of Federal Claims, Washington DC. The firm also brought three administrative actions against the governmental agency directly involved with withholding patients from Kenney Orthopedics. In addition, the firm initiated a lawsuit against the United States and its employees in the Eastern District of Kentucky, and defended an appeal taken by the United States to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Following litigation in the Eastern District of Kentucky and an evidentiary hearing, Morris & Morris persuaded the U.S. District Judge to refuse to allow the United States to substitute itself for all of the individual employee defendants.
The United States appealed that ruling to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, where an oral argument was pending at the time of settlement. In the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, Morris & Morris demonstrated that the United States government and/or its employee(s), had intentionally and/or recklessly withheld substantial evidence critical to the underlying claims, and that some of the testimony and evidence proffered by the United States to the Eastern District of Kentucky was also flawed and/or misstated.
The law firm uncovered an effort on the part of the VA to ignore the express policy mandating that, “Service connected veterans who have obtained their most recent [prosthetic] limb from a non-contract provider will be allowed to have their subsequent limb manufactured by the VA non-contract provider as long as the prosthetist is willing to accept the geographic VA preferred provider payment rate for the state in which the prosthetist performs this service,” according to the VA Handbook.
