Maryland Nursing Home Has No Jury Trial Right in Agency Action

The Seventh Amendment doesn’t guarantee a Medicare participant a right to a jury trial when HHS brings an administrative proceeding seeking civil monetary penalties against it, a federal appeals court said Friday.

A jury trial right would attach in an administrative proceeding if the agency targeted the same type of conduct as a well-recognized common law cause of action, the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said. The US Department of Health and Human Service’s proceeding against Montgomery County, Md.'s Sligo Creek Center, a skilled nursing facility, didn’t do so, Judge Toby J. Heytens wrote for the ...