Healthcare

Junior doctors have notched an important victory in a class action alleging Peninsula Health failed to pay overtime hours, with a judge finding the healthcare provider liable to pay for overtime that was not expressly authorised.

A judge has directed a class action on behalf of 1,000 patients of Sydney-based plastic surgeon Daniel Lanzer and four of his associates to have another go at articulating claims that Lanzer’s clinic should be liable for allegedly ‘horrific’ complications. 

Class actions throw up all manner of ethical conundrums, but a recent Federal Court decision has shined a light on the question of whether funders and law firms should take out loans to run class actions and whether they can charge the costs to group members.

Slater and Gordon has agreed to consolidate its data breach class action against Medibank with one brought by Baker McKenzie, after the judge overseeing the cases railed against competing class actions.

Shine Lawyers’ bid to recoup “exorbitant” interest on a loan it took out to run pelvic mesh class actions against Johnson & Johnson has raised new ethical dilemmas beyond the usual “sweaty palms and huge vexation” in most group proceedings, a judge has said.

The proposed $1.5 billion merger of Australian Clinical Labs and Healius — two of Australia’s largest pathology services providers — is likely to substantially lessen competition, the ACCC has warned.

A union representing 54 junior doctors alleging they were systemically underpaid has defeated a bid by NSW Health to stay its case until the determination of a related class action on behalf of tens of thousands of medical officers. 

A junior doctor representing thousands of medical officers in NSW has thwarted an application by the state to declass her group proceeding, with a judge saying a “single determination” of the issues common to all group members was the most efficient way of resolving them.

A class action over pelvic mesh products supplied by device makers Covidien and TFS has reached a global resolution with the manufacturers and their insurers which brings the recovery total in settled mesh class action close to $450 million.

A judge has adjourned a trial in a case brought by junior doctors seeking to recoup alleged unpaid overtime, despite noting his annoyance over the applicants’ “180 degree turn” on the question of whether the hearing should await delivery of judgment in a related case.