MedQuist Class Action Settlement Finalized
According to the
MedQuist website, on March 31 the U.S. District Court of New Jersey entered final judgment approving the settlement of the medical transcriptionists' class action and dismissing the case with prejudice.
The website provides links to both the Final Judgment and Order of Dismissal with Prejudice and the court's Opinion. Among items of interest (to me, at least) from the Opinion (emphases mine):
The Court finds, based upon Plaintiffs' submissions and the evidence and argument presented at a Final Settlement Hearing convened on March 27, 2009, that this settlement represents a good value to the class for what has proved to be a very weak case. (p. 3)
In addition to the discovery produced by Defendants, Plaintiffs' counsel and their investigators interviewed hundreds of potential witnesses in their efforts to develop the evidence to support their claims. Plaintiffs hired the investigative firm of LR Hodges, which tracked down between fifty and one hundred potential witnesses across the country, and Plaintiffs' attorneys themselves interviewed between one hundred and two hundred potential witnesses, in addition to the approximately two dozen depositions taken, as described herein. (p. 5)
According to Plaintiffs, over the course of this discovery period, Defendants produced, and Plaintiffs reviewed, approximately one million pages of documents. (p. 6)
As Plaintiffs indicate in their submissions to the Court, and as became clear at the March 27, 2009 hearing, notwithstanding Plaintiffs' expansive discovery and investigative work, no evidence emerged to support their allegations that MedQuist had systematically underpaid its transcriptionists. Plaintiffs' computer expert reviewed thousands of pages of medical reports generated by class members, as well as other data MedQuist produced during discovery, and was unable to find any evidence of a pattern of underpayment through the undercounting of lines. (p. 7)
In addition, over the course of their depositions, "a number of Plaintiffs' declarants retracted, contradicted or otherwise undermined the evidence upon which Plaintiffs intended to rely." In particular, as the parties indicated at the March 27, 2009 hearing, two of the individually named Plaintiffs - Dorothy Myers and Wendy Svoboda - reexamined their reports which had formed the basis of Plaintiffs' allegations of
undercounting and underpayment, and, during their depositions, testified that MedQuist had, in fact, accurately counted the lines in the reports. (p. 7)
Regarding the Summary Notice of Judgment:
The Notice was ...mailed to approximately 28,000 potential class members. Between the responses received by the Settlement Administrator, and those sent to the Court, 202 potential class members opted to exclude themselves from the proposed settlement, and 153 potential class members wrote to object to the settlement; in all, these submissions amount to less than 1.7% of the class members. The vast majority of these objections target the distribution of the settlement fund to AHDI, with the objectors asserting primarily that the settlement fund should be divided and distributed among the class members directly. Additionally, approximately nineteen objectors state that the funds should not be distributed to AHDI, stating either (1) that AHDI does not represent the interests of American transcriptionists because it advocates on behalf of those who wish to outsource transcription work overseas, or (2) that AHDI benefits the transcription industry, not transcriptionists, and is too closely tied to MedQuist. (p. 11, 12)
With regard to the courses that AHDI agreed, through the settlement, to make available to class members, Dr. Preziosi stated that 10,000 places in a variety of courses were set aside for class members. At the hearing, the Court noted that the deadline of December 31, 2009 contained in the proposed settlement for class members to sign up for AHDI's courses afforded class members a somewhat narrow window in which to take advantage of the settlement, and the parties, along with Dr. Preziosi on behalf of AHDI, agreed to extend the registration deadline until July 1, 2010. Thus, as revised, a Class Member will have until July 1, 2010 to enroll in one of the AHDI offerings, which may be completed after that date. (p. 14)
...the Court is satisfied, based upon the testimony of Dr. (Peter) Preziosi, (AHDI Executive Director) that AHDI does not advocate in favor of foreign outsourcing of transcription work, and is not so closely tied to MedQuist that it cannot represent transcriptionists' interests. Dr. Preziosi's testimony was directly to the contrary. The Court acknowledges the objections that raise these concerns, but finds, in light of Dr. Preziosi's testimony, that the concerns are misplaced. Although some class members objected to AHDI's role in providing benefits to the class under this settlement, it appears that AHDI is best situated to advocate for class members generally and to provide courses and materials to class members specifically who choose to avail themselves of this benefit. (p. 31)
In light of Plaintiffs' failure to develop any evidence suggestive of systematic underpayment by MedQuist, the injunctive relief provides a resolution for what the evidence now suggests was the actual harm underlying this conflict - the misunderstanding between the parties over the definition of a payroll line. (p. 40)
All told, the collective market value for the AHDI offerings provided by the settlement is $2,048,500. (p. 41)
At the time of this writing, the AHDI web page with FAQs about this case had not yet been updated with news of the final settlement, nor with information as to when eligible class members will be able to take advantage of the various free offerings from AHDI as part of the settlement terms.