The husband of “The View” host Sunny Hostin, together with 200 co-defendants accused of insurance coverage fraud in a sweeping, $459 million New York lawsuit, might discover himself tied up in courtroom for years to come back, in accordance with authorized consultants.
Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Hostin, an orthopedic surgeon, is amongst dozens of medical doctors and medical personnel named in the federal lawsuit, which was filed final month by American Transit Insurance Co., a New York-based business auto insurance coverage supplier that insures Uber, Lyft, and taxi corporations within the state. Hostin specifically is accused of receiving kickbacks by “performing surgical procedure and fraudulently billing” American Transit, in accordance with the lawsuit.
It cites at the very least two of Hostin’s sufferers who have been allegedly treated in January 2023 following involvement in “low-impact” collisions that triggered solely minimal injury. Despite experiencing “not more than soft-tissue accidents,” each acquired arthroscopic surgical procedure, the lawsuit mentioned.
The lawsuit was filed beneath the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, within the Eastern District of New York— a technique that authorized consultants informed Fox News Digital is designed to have a chilling impact on habits. It’s additionally one which dangers entangling defendants resembling Hostin in years of complicated courtroom proceedings— and doubtlessly saddling them with huge payouts consequently.
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“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin. (Screenshot/ABC)
That’s as a result of RICO legal guidelines— handed within the Nineteen Seventies as an try and crack down on mafia exercise and different organized crime— permit plaintiffs to win “treble damages,” awards which can be triple the quantity of precise, or compensatory damages.
In the American Transit case, that is someplace within the ballpark of $459 million or extra— thrice as excessive as their compensatory damages, which stand at $153 million.
Intimidation issue, chilling impact
Often, a lot of these lawsuits are pursued with a sure technique in thoughts, mentioned Michael Mears, an affiliate regulation professor on the John Marshall Law School who makes a speciality of prison regulation and RICO instances.
“There’s much more happening with using the RICO statute than simply recovering damages,” Mears informed Fox News Digital in an interview. “It’s altering behaviors. It’s altering attitudes. It’s altering the way in which enterprise is completed typically.”
RICO civil lawsuits are typically used as a method to drive individuals or cease sure behaviors and oppressive practices. In the case involving Hostin, that features allegedly routine over-billing by medical doctors and ambulatory providers, or the overcharging of sufferers to a rare diploma.
In the New York case, for instance, “you have obtained medical doctors who actually do not need to be referred to as criminals,” Mears mentioned. “Just the accusations alone [in] a civil RICO statute might be very intimidating, and be a really highly effective device” to cease objectionable practices.
That’s to not say there will not be a litany of courtroom exercise forward for defendants named within the American Transit lawsuit, together with Hostin.
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Sunny Hostin speaks on air in a phase on ‘The VIew.’ (Screenshot/ABC)
Legal consultants informed Fox News Digital that civil RICO instances in at the moment’s world are a protracted recreation— typically carrying a timeline of years, quite than months, to play out in courtroom.
Plaintiffs in civil RICO instances are sometimes insurance coverage corporations who’re accusing a gaggle of individuals of fraud, Jeffrey Grell, an legal professional specializing in RICO litigation, informed Fox News Digital in an interview.
In the American Transit lawsuit, the insurance coverage supplier accuses Hostin and the handfuls of different medical practitioners of abusing New York’s no-fault regulation to artificially inflate or invoice for pointless medical remedies and revenue from the kickbacks.
No-fault legal guidelines require corporations like American Transit to cowl well being care bills “fairly incurred” on account of accidents suffered by insured occupants. But the low burden of proof beneath no-fault legal guidelines additionally implies that they’re particularly susceptible to exploitation by medical practitioners.
American Transit alleges that Hostin and different defendants abused New York’s no-fault legal guidelines to invoice “tons of of hundreds of thousands” of {dollars} in fraudulent funds between 2009 and December 2024.
“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin. (92Y by way of YouTube)
Complex instances, prolonged timelines
Civil RICO instances are sometimes prolonged, arduous instances for every of the people concerned.
In reality, the 698-page lawsuit filed by American Transit is among the many largest RICO civil instances ever filed in New York— all however making certain a drawn-out decision course of for Hostin and different defendants.
Courts “are going to have a look at the person claims made towards every defendant to determine all the weather of a RICO declare, and all the weather of RICO claims are fairly sophisticated,” Grell mentioned.
Many of the defendants— if not all— will try to maneuver to dismiss the case earlier than discovery begins, a preliminary course of that alone can take greater than a yr. Often, there shall be a flurry of associated motions filed by defendants in trying to have their movement to dismiss granted by the courtroom, additional including to the drawn-out timeframe.
After the motions to dismiss are resolved, the invention course of begins. This course of might be prolonged and complicated, because it includes every particular person named within the go well with, and the counsel for every defendant will try and make the case that their shopper individually doesn’t fulfill the weather of the RICO case.
“Like in another civil lawsuit, the RICO statute permits individuals to take depositions,” Mears mentioned of the timeframe for RICO instances. “They permit the gathering of paperwork. They permit the invention of filling information.”
Ultimately, it is a course of that “opens up an entire avenue to search out out what is going on on throughout the group— whether or not it is a physician’s workplace, a hospital, a physician’s group,” he mentioned, and which permits plaintiffs to order discovery and doc assortment from every particular person named.
That can lead to the case dragging on for even longer.
“In different phrases, the invention course of [in RICO cases] might be very intimidating,” Mears mentioned. “It’s a protracted recreation.”
Sunny Hostin, for her half, has weighed in on her husband’s work as a physician in her position co-hosting “The View.”
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Most lately, Hostin referred to his work in a dialogue over medical insurance within the wake of the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in New York City.
“Doctors undergo due to huge firms as effectively, medical doctors that need to do good like my husband,” Hostin mentioned within the phase. She added that her husband, in his capability as an orthopedic surgeon, “operates on somebody despite the fact that they do not have insurance coverage after which has to sue medical insurance corporations to receives a commission for the work that he is been educated his complete life to do.”
Hostin’s attorneys beforehand denied all allegations towards him and described the submitting a “blanket, scattershot, meritless lawsuit by a near-bankrupt insurance coverage service,” in accordance with the Daily Mail.
They didn’t reply to Fox News Digital’s request for touch upon the allegations or any timeline anticipated within the RICO proceedings.
