By: Derek Hawkins//March 28, 2016//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: Robert Ciarpaglini v. Felicia Norwood
Case No.: 14-1588
Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and MANION and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges
Focus: Challenge to Legislation
Court lacked evidence in the record to determine whether appellant’s claims for injunctive relief were moot.
“If the change in plaintiff’s care program was indeed part of this broad shift in policy that affected all or most Medicaid recipients in Winnebago County, rather than an individually targeted effort to neutralize his lawsuit, then his challenge to the prior‐approval requirement is probably moot. Statewide or even countywide changes in Medicaid policy are not made quickly or lightly. As a practical matter, the prospect that Illinois will implement further change relevant to this lawsuit— for example, by abandoning the managed care program entirely, or by making the prior‐approval requirement for medications applicable to it—seems unlikely. And any such change would take time, providing advance notice to Medicaid recipients like plaintiff. Under these circumstances, the theoretical possibility that the state might someday abandon its managed care program (despite legislation mandating its expansion), or might add the prior‐approval requirement to plaintiff’s managed care program, would not be enough to avoid mootness.”
Remanded to District Court