Ronald Lee Gilman

This case involved two defendants, a chiropractor who owned a Kentucky pain clinic and a doctor he hired, who ran a scheme from 2017 onward to order specialized definitive urine drug tests on patients without proper medical justification and bill insurers like Medicare at much higher rates than routine tests warranted. Both were indicted on health care fraud and conspiracy charges, with one also facing a controlled substance distribution count; a jury convicted them on the fraud-related counts. On appeal to the Sixth Circuit, the defendants challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, various trial rulings, and the procedural reasonableness of their sentences, particularly the loss amount calculations. The court affirmed the convictions and sentences in full, holding that the evidence supported the verdicts, no reversible errors occurred at trial, and the district court's loss estimates—derived by subtracting a percentage for potentially legitimate tests from amounts paid by insurers—were reasonable under the guidelines.

criminal lawhealthcare

This case arose from a 2021 incident in which Melissa Wooden, experiencing a mental-health crisis, called 911 requesting that police kill her while armed with a bat and pickaxe; responding officers from the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County tased and shot her after assuring her she would not be harmed. Plaintiff Michael Chrestman, acting as next friend, sued the involved officers and the municipality under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged Fourth Amendment excessive force. The district court granted the officers' motion to dismiss on qualified-immunity grounds and dismissed the municipal-liability claim. The Sixth Circuit reversed in part and vacated in part, holding that the complaint plausibly alleged violations of clearly established rights based on the facts pleaded (which must be accepted as true at the pleading stage) and that the municipal claim could proceed once the officers' liability was not dismissed.

civil rightscriminal lawprocedure

The case involved Joe Pennington, an off-duty Metropolitan Nashville police officer who became involved in a bar altercation after drinking and was later ordered by his superiors to submit to a breathalyzer test as part of an administrative investigation. Pennington complied but sued the officers and the government, claiming the order constituted an unlawful seizure in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The district court granted judgment to the defendants, and the Sixth Circuit affirmed. The court reasoned that Pennington was not seized because a reasonable officer in his position would not have feared physical detention or restraint, only potential job discipline, and the threat of termination alone does not amount to a seizure under Supreme Court precedent.

criminal lawcivil rights