Marion HealthCare, LLC. v. Southern Illinois Healthcare ( 2022 )


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  •                                  In the
    United States Court of Appeals
    For the Seventh Circuit
    ____________________
    No. 20-1581
    MARION HEALTHCARE, LLC,
    Plaintiff-Appellant,
    v.
    SOUTHERN ILLINOIS HOSPITAL SERVICES, a not-for-profit corpo-
    ration doing business as Southern Illinois Healthcare; and
    HEALTH CARE SERVICE CORPORATION, doing business as Blue
    Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois,
    Defendants-Appellees.
    ____________________
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Southern District of Illinois.
    No. 3:12-CV-871-MAB — Mark A. Beatty, Magistrate Judge.
    ____________________
    ARGUED NOVEMBER 10, 2020 — DECIDED JULY 15, 2022
    ____________________
    Before EASTERBROOK and SCUDDER, Circuit Judges.*
    * Circuit Judge Kanne, a member of the panel at the time of argument,
    died on June 16, 2022. This appeal is being decided by a quorum. 
    28 U.S.C. §46
    (d).
    2                                                  No. 20-1581
    EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. The operator of an outpatient
    surgery clinic in southern Illinois accuses the area’s largest
    hospital system and its largest health insurer of violating fed-
    eral antitrust law and similar state rules by entering into con-
    tracts that designate the hospital but not the clinic as a pre-
    ferred provider (also known as an in-network provider) for
    the insurer. This leads some patients to choose the hospital
    over the clinic because more of the fees will be reimbursed,
    copayments will be lower, or both.
    District Judge Herndon dismissed much of the complaint
    but permiTed Marion HealthCare (which we call the Clinic)
    to try again. 
    2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120722
     (S.D. Ill. Aug. 26,
    2013). After Judge Herndon retired, the case was transferred
    to District Judge Yandle, who granted judgment in favor of
    the insurer (Health Care Service Corp., which we call the
    Blues because it comprises both Blue Cross and Blue Shield
    plans).
    Judge Yandle concluded that insurers are customers and
    cannot be liable for the practices of sellers with market power.
    
    2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 69749
     (S.D. Ill. May 29, 2015). As payors,
    insurers should be aligned as plaintiffs (if they are to be liti-
    gants at all) rather than defendants. But Judge Yandle denied
    the motion of Southern Illinois Hospital Services to dismiss
    the amended complaint. (We call it the Hospital, singular, alt-
    hough it has three facilities in southern Illinois—a hospital in
    Carbondale, population 25,000, and two smaller facilities.)
    The Clinic and the Hospital agreed that a magistrate judge
    could handle the rest of the case and enter a final judgment.
    
    28 U.S.C. §636
    (c).
    Discovery followed, but, before releasing a decision on the
    Hospital’s motion for summary judgment, Magistrate Judge
    No. 20-1581                                                     3
    Williams retired. His successor appointed the retired judge as
    a special master. Reviewing the special master’s report, Mag-
    istrate Judge BeaTy granted summary judgment to the Hos-
    pital on the ground that the Clinic had not been injured. 
    2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55745
     (S.D. Ill. Mar. 31, 2020).
    That wrapped up all parties and issues. The Clinic ap-
    pealed, contesting the decisions of both District Judge Yandle
    and Magistrate Judge BeaTy. No one noticed a potential juris-
    dictional problem: the Blues had not consented to a magis-
    trate judge having final authority.
    We held in Coleman v. Wisconsin Labor & Industrial Commis-
    sion, 
    860 F.3d 461
     (7th Cir. 2017), that use of the §636(c) proce-
    dure requires the consent of every named litigant, even one
    that has not been served with process. In the absence of all
    parties’ consent, Coleman concludes, a district judge rather
    than the court of appeals reviews the magistrate judge’s deci-
    sion. We directed the parties to file supplemental memos ad-
    dressing Coleman. The Clinic has asked us to dismiss the ap-
    peal (which it could have done on its own but didn’t), while
    the Hospital and the Blues contend that we have jurisdiction.
    The Clinic, having lost on the merits before Magistrate Judge
    BeaTy, now wants a decision by an Article III district judge.
    Section 636(c)(1) says that a magistrate judge may enter a
    final decision “[u]pon the consent of the parties”. Coleman
    holds that everyone named in the complaint is a party for this
    purpose. Any other approach, Coleman said, could deprive a
    litigant of the right to a decision by a person enjoying the ten-
    ure and salary protections of Article III. This also implies a
    limit to Coleman’s scope, for the Blues enjoyed that right and
    prevailed before a district judge. (The Blues say that, after
    winning, they were no longer a party because they had been
    4                                                     No. 20-1581
    dismissed from the case. That’s mistaken; they were and are
    a prevailing party, not a retroactive non-party. That’s why they
    are appellees in this court, defending their victory.)
    An opinion dissenting from the denial of hearing en banc
    in Coleman freTed about the handling of litigation such as this,
    in which one defendant wins before a district judge and the
    remaining litigants consent to decision by a magistrate judge.
    860 F.3d at 479. The panel responded that, in such a situation,
    it is enough if all litigants whose rights remain to be deter-
    mined consent to have a magistrate judge resolve their con-
    troversy. Id. at 471. This exception, which ensures that every
    litigant enjoys the right to an Article III judge if it chooses, fits
    the current situation. The Blues received a district judge’s de-
    cision; the Clinic and the Hospital made their own choice to
    have a magistrate judge decide the remaining issues.
    There is more. Consent to decision by a magistrate judge
    may be implied as well as express. Roell v. Withrow, 
    538 U.S. 580
    , 588–90 (2003), held that a party may consent by submit-
    ting arguments to a magistrate judge without protest. The
    Blues did exactly that. When the Clinic and Hospital sought
    discovery from the Blues during the extended litigation that
    followed District Judge Yandle’s decision in the Blues’ favor,
    they protested to the magistrate judge rather than to Judge
    Yandle. The Blues’ post-argument memorandum in this court
    treats that step as representing whatever consent was neces-
    sary for the magistrate judge to play the role to which the
    Clinic and the Hospital had agreed. To top this off, the Blues’
    post-argument memorandum tells us that the Blues are con-
    tent with the division of authority between the district judge
    and the magistrate judge. That amounts to express consent, if
    belated. We therefore have appellate jurisdiction.
    No. 20-1581                                                      5
    The Blues won on the ground that they are consumers of
    medical care (or at least pay on behalf of consumers) and, if
    the Hospital has market power, should be plaintiffs rather
    than defendants. Judge Yandle thought that both the Sherman
    Act and §3 of the Clayton Act lead to this result. The Hospital
    won on the ground that the Clinic was not injured and, if in-
    jured, did not suffer antitrust injury—that is, was not made
    worse off by higher prices or a reduction in output, the things
    that make monopolies objectionable. See Brunswick Corp. v.
    Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 
    429 U.S. 477
     (1977). The antitrust laws
    “protect consumers from suppliers rather than suppliers from
    each other.” Stamatakis Industries, Inc. v. King, 
    965 F.2d 469
    , 471
    (7th Cir. 1992); accord, Four Corners Nephrology Associates v.
    Mercy Medical Center of Durango, 
    582 F.3d 1216
    , 1217 (10th Cir.
    2009) (Gorsuch, J.).
    Judge Yandle’s and Judge BeaTy’s reasons, though nomi-
    nally different, are two aspects of the same reason: liability in
    antitrust law turns not on phrases such as “exclusive con-
    tract” but on whether consumer welfare has been impaired.
    See, e.g., Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 
    442 U.S. 330
     (1979); Broadcast
    Music, Inc. v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 
    441 U.S. 1
    (1979). Patients (the consumers of health care), their payment
    proxies (the Blues and other private insurers), and their gov-
    ernmental proxies (the Antitrust Division, the FTC, Medicare,
    and Medicaid) would be appropriate plaintiffs, but none of
    these has appeared on the Clinic’s side.
    The Clinic scarcely tries to show that it has been injured
    by reduced output or higher prices at the Hospital. And that’s
    not the only thing odd about this antitrust suit. The complaint
    does not allege that there is any historical link between the
    Hospital’s insurance-contracting practices and either prices or
    6                                                   No. 20-1581
    output. Instead the complaint alleges that the Hospital has
    77% of the patient admissions in the two counties where the
    Clinic has facilities.
    Does that imply market power? Illinois has 102 counties,
    and in rural stretches of southern Illinois patients may find it
    necessary to drive some distance for medical care. For all this
    complaint shows, the area from which the Hospital draws pa-
    tients is larger than two counties—and perhaps there are
    other equally large hospitals just outside these two counties.
    If so, persons seeking medical care could turn to them. The
    counties where the plaintiff has premises may be a poor proxy
    for power to affect price, and the allegations of the complaint
    do not match this circuit’s approach to ascertaining market
    power in medical cases. See, e.g., FTC v. Advocate Health Care
    Network, 
    841 F.3d 460
     (7th Cir. 2016); Vasquez v. Indiana Uni-
    versity Health, Inc., No. 21-3109 (7th Cir. July 8, 2022).
    Then there is the Clinic’s unusual use of “exclusive deal-
    ing.” The Blues have not promised to deal only with the Hos-
    pital (in or out of two particular counties), nor has the Hospi-
    tal promised to deal only with the Blues. The Hospital accepts
    payments from many insurers, in addition to Medicare and
    Medicaid, while the Blues reimburse all manner of providers.
    Any person insured by the Blues is free to use the Clinic’s ser-
    vices. The amount the Blues reimburse (or the required co-
    payment) may be different, but no one has refused to deal
    with anyone else. The Clinic, for its part, can strike preferred-
    provider deals with other insurers and has done so with at
    least one. Magistrate Judge BeaTy wrote that the Clinic does
    not want preferred-provider deals, fearing that such an ar-
    rangement could produce more patients than it could handle.
    
    2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55745
     at *27 (the Clinic “remained out-
    No. 20-1581                                                      7
    of-network as a business strategy, at times complaining that
    the rates being offered by payers were not competitive and at
    other times, remaining out-of-network because [it] did not be-
    lieve it could handle the increased patient volume that would
    flow from an in-network agreement with certain payers”). So
    the deal between the Hospital and the Blues has not fenced
    the Clinic out of any part of the market in which it cares to
    participate.
    In other words, the Blues’ commitment to the Hospital
    not to strike a preferred-provider deal with some other pro-
    vider located near the Hospital is not “exclusive dealing” in
    the normal antitrust sense. For the same reason it cannot be
    called a tie-in contract. It is instead a form of price discrimi-
    nation. Yet the Clinic does not contend that the antitrust laws
    forbid price discrimination by either the Hospital or the Blues.
    This is not the first time the Seventh Circuit has addressed
    one medical provider’s antitrust challenge to a preferred-pro-
    vider deal struck between an insurer and a different medical
    provider. Methodist Health Services Corp. v. OSF HealthCare
    System, 
    859 F.3d 408
     (7th Cir. 2017), holds that neither federal
    nor Illinois antitrust law forbids such arrangements, whether
    or not a medical provider has market power. We emphasized
    the benefits of allowing competition for the contract: that is,
    an insurer or other payor can use the inducement of preferred
    provider status to haggle down the prices charged by a pro-
    vider with market power. That works to patients’ benefit, for
    insurance costs less; bargaining by large payors helps coun-
    teract the large hospital’s ability to raise prices. Methodist Hos-
    pital added that a preferred-provider designation differs from
    vertical integration—first, because the contract can be renego-
    tiated periodically, and second, because the insurance market
    8                                                  No. 20-1581
    contains other payors, some of which will designate the large
    hospital as a preferred provider and some of which won’t. We
    concluded that competition in the market, rather than judicial
    decisions, should determine how that process plays out. That
    is as true of the Clinic’s claim as it was of Methodist Hospi-
    tal’s.
    Instead of calling the arrangement between the Blues and
    the Clinic a form of exclusive dealing, the Clinic might have
    argued that the Blues’ preferred-provider network is an es-
    sential facility to which every medical provider requires ac-
    cess. But it would be hard to invoke the essential-facilities
    doctrine, for the Clinic does not contend that the Blues have
    market power, so its network cannot be essential. And the Su-
    preme Court greatly curtailed the scope of the essential-facil-
    ities doctrine in Pacific Bell Telephone Co. v. linkLine Communi-
    cations, Inc., 
    555 U.S. 438
     (2009). This makes it understandable
    that the Clinic has not depicted the Blues’ network as essen-
    tial, but the exclusive-dealing cases are even less apt.
    The Clinic proffered an expert witness (John Bowblis) who
    assumed that the Hospital has market power rather than try-
    ing to demonstrate it. For that and other reasons, including
    the fact that Bowblis’s damages theory does not match the
    Clinic’s liability theories and that he did not try to estimate
    losses to consumers, Magistrate Judge BeaTy excluded the re-
    port under Fed. R. Evid. 702. He did not abuse his discretion
    in doing so. This left the Clinic without any means to show
    market power, antitrust injury (or any injury), or otherwise
    get beyond labels such as “exclusive dealing.” And labels are
    not enough.
    No. 20-1581                                                   9
    The Clinic’s other theories need not be discussed, and its
    state-law claims fail for the same reason its federal-law claims
    fail.
    AFFIRMED