Last Friday, federal judge Richard Stearns dismissed the well-publicized whistleblower lawsuit alleging that certain spine surgeons accepted kickbacks for using Medtronic's spinal implants. He also blocked a motion by the two women to file an amended complaint.
The lawsuit accused over 100 surgeons of violating the False Claims Act from as far back as 2002 and was brought by the same plaintiffs who settled an earlier lawsuit against Medtronic for $40 million. Noting this, Judge Stearns determined that the allegations in the suit had already been aired both in court and by the media.
Medtronic was not named as a defendant in this latest lawsuit, though the company did defend the payments as legitimate and not kickbacks. As of January 2010, the company will voluntarily disclose all payments to physicians in an annual report.
