In June, 2024, a trade association and several nursing homes filed suit in Amarillo, Texas. Their Amended Complaint still appears to be the operative complaint in that case at this time. American Health Care Association v. Becerra, Amended Complaint, DE 26, filed 06.18.24 (N.D. Tex. Case No. 2:24-cv-00114).
The lead plaintiff led five other plaintiffs in filing suit in the Northern District of Texas, Amarillo Division. This is the courthouse of choice where, as in this case, plaintiffs oppose allegedly "onerous" rules like standards for nursing staff in Nursing Homes.
In the lawsuit to block the "onerous" nurse staffing standards in Nursing Homes, the American Health Care Association and its five co-plaintiffs alleged:
That rule exceeds CMS’s statutory authority, effects a baffling and unexplained departure from the agency’s longstanding position, and creates impossible-to-meet standards that will harm thousands of nursing homes and the vulnerable Americans they serve.
The rule is easy to understand to those who read it. It turns out that the "agency's longstanding position" originated during the American Apocalypse, between the afternoon of January 20, 2017 and the morning of January 20, 2021. That is not so longstanding in the eyes of most reasonable persons.
The "impossible-to-meet standards that will harm thousands of nursing homes" depends on how much of a Return on Investment you were counting on when you invested in Nursing Homes. If you expected to profit from the relative absence of nurses to whom you have to pay salaries, then that would be one thing which would make hiring nurses to staff Nursing Homes "impossible," I suppose.
The "vulnerable Americans" the nurses serve are the people who live in the plaintiffs' nursing homes. The plaintiffs actually allege that these "vulnerable Americans" will be harmed by having more nurses on staff. Not one resident of a nursing home is a plaintiff in American Health Association v. Becerra.
Outside of Amarillo, none of this seems especially plausible. Plausibility is of course the standard to measure whether an amended complaint like this one states a claim upon which relief can be granted.
Undeterred by questions of plausibility, the Department of Justice and the plaintiffs in this case have stipulated that the case should be resolved by both parties moving for the entry of judgment under a briefing schedule that runs into 2025. American Health Care Ass'n v. Becerra, Joint Motion for Briefing Schedule, DE 45, filed 08.09.24 (N.D. Tex. Case No. 2:24-cv-00114). A U.S. Magistrate Judge approved the stipulation.
In the meantime, there does not seem to be anything to prevent the standards for nurses to staff Nursing Homes in the Northern District of Texas. Or anywhere else in the United States, for that matter.
As of Saturday morning, March 14, 2025, I could not find any Order on the electronic docket on PACER that says that the staffing standards are not in effect.[1]
Case law on the issues in this case is set out in § 18C:6.50, titled Private Equity and Medicare, in Volume 2 of CATASTROPHE CLAIMS / INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR NATURAL AND MAN-MADE DISASTERS (Thomson Reuters November 2024 Edition, 2025 Supplements in process).
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[1] However I did find several Orders granting leave to foreign lawyers to put in their appearances in the case. But after checking on PACER for a year-and-a-half, so far I have not found any Orders enjoining the enforcement of the staffing standards for nurses in Nursing Homes, wherever they are located. And as yet, I have not found stipulations either.
Unfortunately, Typepad would not cooperate with PACER and upload the documents from the Electronic Court File for your ease of reference here. I tried, more than once.
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