Citing Professor McCrary’s analysis throughout the opinion, the court denied class certification in In Re Outpatient Medical Center Employee Antitrust Litigation.
Retained by Morgan Lewis, by McGuire Woods, and by King & Spalding
The court denied plaintiffs’ motion for class certification, ruling that the plaintiffs failed to show that common issues predominate.
Healthcare No-Poach Allegations
Plaintiffs alleged that the defendants, DaVita, Surgical Care Affiliates (SCA), and United Surgical Partners International (USPI), engaged in a no-poach and wage-fixing conspiracy to suppress senior-level healthcare workers’ pay over more than a decade.
Counsel for the joint defense retained Cornerstone Research to support Justin McCrary of Columbia Law School, and counsel for USPI retained Cornerstone Research to support Celeste Saravia of Cornerstone Research.
Expert Analysis and Reports
Professor McCrary prepared a class certification report on behalf of the joint defense group. His analyses included reviewing the defendants’ pay data as well as proprietary data containing employment histories for workers ever employed at DaVita, SCA, or USPI. He showed that proposed class members had widely varying job titles, skills, and employment opportunities, and that the three defendants competed with many other firms for proposed class members’ labor. Professor McCrary also critiqued the plaintiffs’ expert’s pay regression model, pointing out that the measurement of pay was inappropriate, which led to the regression analysis being excluded.
Dr. Saravia prepared a report addressing firm-specific issues on behalf of USPI. She showed that economic outcomes were inconsistent with the plaintiffs’ claims that USPI suppressed wages, as well as that many putative class members could not have been directly harmed by the plaintiffs’ allegations.
Failure to Show Common Issues
In June 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois found that the plaintiffs failed to show that common issues predominate. In denying class certification, the court explained the plaintiffs did not have a reliable common method of proving impact and damages. Citing heavily to Professor McCrary’s testimony, the court also found that the plaintiffs’ methods of proving wage suppression were not reliable.