Florida judge puts brakes on CIGNA settlement in class action

At issue is which federal judge has jurisdiction in the physician action over managed care.

By Tanya Albert, AMNews staff. Jan. 6, 2003.

In a strongly worded 13-page preliminary injunction, a Miami judge overseeing physician federal lawsuits against managed care companies has temporarily prohibited CIGNA Corp. and physicians who sued the company from going ahead with a settlement agreement filed in an Illinois federal court.

U.S. District Judge Federico A. Moreno in the Southern District of Florida Miami Division -- who was appointed to handle pretrial motions for physician managed care lawsuits filed in federal courts across the country -- was not pleased that CIGNA and two physicians who sued the company in state court in Illinois moved the suit to federal court in Illinois and then immediately filed a settlement there.

"CIGNA snookered both this court and Judge Murphy in Illinois in an obvious attempt to avoid this court's jurisdiction," Moreno wrote in his Dec. 12, 2002, order. "CIGNA settled the claims of this court's plaintiff class and yet seeks approval from another judge in Illinois without informing that judge, apparently, of the proceedings in this case."

Moreno's December 2002 order stops CIGNA from going ahead with the settlement "without the expressed approval" of the Miami court and from "contacting in any way the members of the class certified" by Moreno. The class in Miami would include the same physicians who have been certified as a class in the Illinois case.

"This injunction should not be interpreted as any indication of whether the settlement is indeed a fair one, but simply as to which judge has been vested with the authority to render that decision," Moreno wrote.