Profession
Antitrust lawsuit against the Match loses traction
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted June 26, 2006
A federal appeals court in June dismissed a lawsuit that once threatened to shut down the National Resident Matching Program. It marked the third time a court has said the lawsuit, Paul Jung, MD, et al. v. Assn. of American Medical Colleges, et al., cannot go forward.
In the opinion, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the U.S. District Court's August 2004 ruling that concluded the Pension Funding Equity Act of 2004 exempted the Match from antitrust laws.
The suit, originally filed against the National Resident Matching Program, its sponsoring organizations and 29 teaching hospitals, claimed that residents' salaries were artificially low and work hours overly long because the structure of the program made it impossible for residents to negotiate these issues.
Sherman Marek, an attorney for the three former medical residents who filed the class-action suit, said they had not yet decided if they would appeal.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/06/26/prbf0626.htm.
