Halting activity in Planned Parenthood's pending lawsuit over the state's cutoff of Medicaid funding would unnecessarily delay resolution of the dispute, attorneys for the state argued Tuesday.
They were responding to the provider's Oct. 15 request that a federal judge in Little Rock halt proceedings while the U.S. Supreme Court considers hearing appeals from other parts of the country that could affect the outcome of the Arkansas case.
"Plaintiffs have delayed this case when it suited them, sought expedited relief when that suited them, and now once again seek to delay the case when it would suit them," the Arkansas attorney general's office said in response.
Planned Parenthood asked for a "stay" on the case, which is tentatively set for trial in early 2020, arguing that court cases that began in Kansas and Louisiana focus on whether individual Medicaid beneficiaries have a right to sue under the federal Medicaid Act's Free Choice of Provider provision. While U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker in Little Rock said in 2015 that they have the right, she was overturned a year ago by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis.
But in Kansas and Louisiana, district judges denied individual patients the right, but were then overturned by their corresponding federal appeals courts, creating a conflict among the nation's appellate courts.
The U.S. Supreme Court, which began its new term in October, hasn't said yet whether it will agree to settle the dispute by taking up either or both of the appeals from the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado, which oversees Kansas, and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.
Meanwhile, appeals courts for the nation's 6th, 7th and 9th circuits, based respectively in Cincinnati, Chicago and San Francisco, have issued rulings aligned with the 5th and 10th circuit courts.
If the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear appeals from the cases originating in Kansas or Louisiana, any ruling it makes could "significantly alter the issues" pending before Baker, Planned Parenthood attorneys say. But attorneys for the state argued that a stay in the Arkansas case "would accomplish nothing except wasting everyone's time while forestalling a final merits determination" on another argument brought by Planned Parenthood in Baker's court.
That argument, that the funding cutoff violates the patients' rights under the Fourth and 14th amendments to the U.S. Constitution, was a fall-back argument for the plaintiffs and was unsuccessful in their effort to obtain a second preliminary injunction from Baker, whose injunction on the first argument was overturned.
Attorneys for the state urged Baker to let the case before her proceed. They argued that even if the U.S. Supreme Court decides to take up the petitions pending before it from the 5th and 10th circuits, the high court justices would issue an opinion by June 2019, "well in advance of the close of discovery" in the Arkansas case, "and long before any potential merits determination."
Metro on 11/01/2018