Ascension Health Beats Tobacco Surcharge Suit as Courts Fracture

Ascension Health Alliance defeated a proposed class action challenging the tobacco surcharge in its employee health plan, after a federal judge said the health-care system isn’t required to offer retroactive reimbursement of workers’ penalties.

The decision, issued Tuesday in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, comes two weeks after a Texas federal judge reached the opposite conclusion on retroactive reimbursement of tobacco penalties in a case against Whole Foods Inc.

Federal law allows employer-sponsored health plans to penalize smokers if certain conditions are met, and dozens of recent lawsuits have accused employers of failing to ...