Insurers Get Appeal Win as Court Rejects Antitrust Cause-Effect

Amerigroup Tennessee Inc. is free from claims it conspired to restrict competition in allergy care services after the Sixth Circuit affirmed a district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims.

The US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said in a Friday opinion that it agreed with the dismissal because plaintiff United Allergy alleged “only indirect injuries that flow out of the harms the defendants inflicted on physicians.”

“Indirect sellers” who are two or more steps removed from alleged antitrust violators can’t support the “proximate causation” element of their lawsuit, the court said in an opinion by Judge Eric E. ...