Hadden v. US addressed the question of whether equity and comparative fault principles could be used to reduce a conditional payment obligation. The Federal District court answered that question in the negative as did the 6th Circuit. A Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the US Supreme Court was filed last week. If the US Supreme Court takes cert, it could produce a landmark decision in the area of Medicare condtional payment case law. The Hadden decision does appear to be in apparent conflict to some extent with the Bradley 11th Circuit decision. The Hadden case shed some light on Medicare’s refusal to ever allocate personal injury recoveries without a full trial on the merits of a case. Medicare’s refusal to honor any allocation except when it is an order on the merits of a case comes from the MSP field manual. In Bradley, the 11th Circuit found that manual didn’t carry the force of law and wasn’t entitled to deference in allowing the allocation of settlement monies by a probate court. It will be interesting to see what happens with the Petition for Cert. Hopefully, more to come in the near future on Hadden.
