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00-3833 First Health Group Corp. v. BCE Emergis Corporation

By: dmc-admin//October 22, 2001//

00-3833 First Health Group Corp. v. BCE Emergis Corporation

By: dmc-admin//October 22, 2001//

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“No business is entitled to a trial after which judge and jury will determine how language ought to be used, as if usage were a question of law or logic. It is enough to guard against misleading expressions that play on how language is used. Perhaps First Health might have some room for maneuver if it could show that the linguistic community of hospital executives and lawyers differs from that of Congress and the OPM – though even so it is doubtful that the Lanham Act may be employed to ensure that language, used in accord with normal rules of grammar and diction, cannot be misinterpreted. See Mead Johnson & Co. v. Abbott Laboratories, 201 F.3d 883 (7th Cir. 2000). But this is a subject we need not explore, because First Health lacks evidence that hospitals were deceived by what UP&UP said. It offered ‘expert’ evidence that hospitals were bound to be confused by the difference between directed and silent PPOs, but why ask an ‘expert’ when the hospitals can and do speak for themselves? That First Health receives on average twice the discount offered to UP&UP shows that hospitals understand the difference between the two plans.”

Affirmed.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Moran, J., Easterbrook, J.

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