Fleischman, et al. v. Albany Medical Center, et al.

In this price-fixing class action, a plaintiff class of registered nurses in the Albany, NY area alleged that defendant hospitals in Albany conspired to fix nursing wages. Bobby Willig, supported by Meg Guerin-Calvert, Susan Manning, and a Compass Lexecon team in Washington, DC, testified on behalf of the defendants on common impact and injury. Judge Thomas J. McAvoy ruled that plaintiffs had met their burden with respect to a violation of antitrust law but not with respect to issues of injury and damage calculations. The Court placed significant weight on Dr. Willig’s testimony particularly with regard to “injury-in-fact” and on his critique of plaintiffs’ damages methodology. Therefore, the court refused to certify a class on the issues of injury, causation and damages. Defendants were represented by Tom Demitrack, Phillip Proger, Toby Singer, and Michael Shumaker of Jones Day; David Marx, Jr. of McDermott Will & Emery; Nicholas D’Ambrosio, Jr., William Reynolds, and Matthew Boyd of Bond, Schoeneck & King, PLLC; Gordon Lang of Nixon Peabody LLP; and Brian Culnan of Iseman, Cunningham, Riester & Hyde, LLP.