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husband Host of “Landscape” Sunny Hostin and 200 co-defendants charged with insurance fraud in a massive $459 million lawsuit in New York could find themselves stranded in court for years to come, legal experts say .
Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Hostin is a plastic surgeon and one of dozens of doctors and medical staff According to the federal lawsuit, The filing was filed last month by American Transit Insurance Co., a New York-based commercial auto insurer that insures Uber, Lyft and taxi companies in the state. Hostin is specifically accused of “performing surgeries and fraudulently receiving kickbacks from American Transportation,” according to the lawsuit.
It quotes at least two of Hostin’s patients Said to have received treatment in January 2023 After being involved in a “low impact” collision that caused only minimal damage. Although both suffered “nothing more than soft tissue injuries,” both underwent arthroscopic surgery, the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit was filed under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) in the Eastern District of New York — a tactic that legal experts told Fox News Digital is designed to have a chilling effect on conduct. It also risks miring defendants like Hostin in years of complex court proceedings that could leave them liable for huge damages.
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“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin. (Screenshot/ABC)
That’s because RICO laws (passed in the 1970s to combat Mafia activity and other organized crime) allow plaintiffs to win “treble damages,” which is three times the amount of actual damages or compensatory damages.
In the American Transportation Company case, the amount was approximately $459 million or more, three times the amount of damages it was awarded ($153 million).
Intimidation factor, chilling effect
Michael Mears, an associate professor of law at John Marshall Law School who specializes in criminal law and RICO cases, said such lawsuits are often pursued with a specific strategy in mind.
“There’s a lot more to using RICO statutes than just recovering losses,” Mills told Fox News Digital. “It’s changing behavior. It’s changing attitudes. It’s changing the way business is done sometimes.”
RICO civil lawsuits are sometimes used as a means to coerce people or stop certain behaviors and oppressive behaviors. In the case involving Hostin, that included allegations that doctors and outpatient services habitually overbilled, or overbilled patients.
In the New York case, for example, “some doctors really don’t want to be called criminals,” Mills said. “The charges alone in the civil RICO statute can be very intimidating and are a very powerful tool in deterring objectionable conduct.”
That’s not to say defendants named in the U.S. traffic lawsuit, including Hostin, won’t face a flurry of court action.
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Sunny Hostin speaks on “The VIew” show. (Screenshot/ABC)
Legal experts tell Fox News Digital that civil RICO cases in today’s world are a long game, often taking years rather than months to play out in court.
Jeffrey Grell, an attorney who specializes in RICO litigation, told Fox News Digital that plaintiffs in RICO civil cases are typically insurance companies who accuse a group of people of committing fraud.
In the American Transportation lawsuit, insurance companies accuse Hostin and dozens of other doctors of abusing New York’s no-fault law to artificially inflate or charge unnecessary medical bills and profit from kickbacks.
No-fault laws require companies like American Airlines to cover medical expenses “reasonably incurred” when an insured passenger is injured. But the lower burden of proof under no-fault law also means they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation by doctors.
American Transit accused Hostin and other defendants of abusing New York’s no-fault laws to collect “hundreds of millions of dollars” in fraudulent payments between 2009 and December 2024.
“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin. (92Y, via YouTube)
The case is complex and takes a long time
Civil RICO cases are often long and arduous cases for each individual involved.
In fact, the 698-page lawsuit filed by American Transportation Company is one of the largest RICO civil cases ever filed in New York, which all but guarantees a lengthy resolution process for Hostin and the other defendants.
Greer said the court “will review the individual claims brought against each defendant to determine all elements of a RICO claim, which are complex.”
Many defendants, if not all, will attempt to dismiss the case prior to discovery, and this preliminary process alone can take more than a year. Often, defendants file a series of related motions in an attempt to get the court to grant their motion to dismiss, further extending the lengthy time frame.
Once the motion to dismiss is resolved, the discovery process begins. This process can be long and complicated because it involves everyone named in the lawsuit, and each defendant’s attorney will try to prove that their client personally does not meet the elements of a RICO case.
“Like any other civil action, RICO statutes allow people to take depositions,” Mills said of the time frame for RICO cases. “They allow the collection of documents. They allow the discovery of populated records.”
Ultimately, he said, the process “opens up a complete path to understanding what’s going on within an organization — whether it’s a doctor’s office, a hospital or a physician group” and allows plaintiffs to name everyone.
This may cause the case to drag on longer.
“In other words, the discovery process (in a RICO case) can be very scary,” Mills said. “It’s a long game.”
Sunny Hostin, who co-hosts “The View,” weighed in on her husband’s work as a doctor.
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Recently, Hostin mentioned his work following the president’s assassination during a discussion about health insurance. UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson In New York City.
“Doctors, too, suffer because of big corporations and they, like my husband, want to do good,” Hostin said on the show. She added that her husband, in his capacity as an orthopedic surgeon, “performs surgeries on people who don’t have insurance. And then has to sue the health insurance company to get paid for the job he was trained to do his entire life.”
According to the Daily Mail, Hostin’s lawyers have previously denied all accusations against him, calling it “a blanket, aimless and baseless lawsuit brought by an insurance company on the verge of bankruptcy.”
They did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment on the allegations or any timeline expected in the RICO lawsuit.
