On July, 23, 2018 a three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit issued a decision in Obidi v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Case No. 17-55539), holding that a class-action suit against Wal-Mart and FirstSight Vision Services, Inc., a vision-only health care plan, can proceed on the theory that the defendants violated various California consumer protection laws by advertising “Independent Doctors of Optometry” that were, in fact, controlled by Wal-Mart and FirstSight. Though the decision is a narrow one (addressing only whether the plaintiffs have standing to sue), its reasoning could be relevant for how retail clinics and other corporate entities structure their relationships with physicians and other licensees to comply with state corporate practice of medicine (“CPOM”) rules.

Background of the Case

Wal-Mart stores across the country include on-site “Vision Centers” that offer basic eye exams, contacts, and prescription glasses. In California, Wal-Mart is registered as an optician and leases space in its stores to FirstSight, a licensed vision health plan. FirstSight, in turn, subleases this space to individual optometrists who charge patients directly. Wal-Mart and FirstSight advertised that the Vision Centers were staffed by “Independent Doctors of Optometry.” A former patient filed a putative class-action suit alleging Wal-Mart and FirstSight violated California’s Unfair Competition Law because (a) the defendants falsely advertised that the optometrists were “independent” and (b) the business arrangement between Wal-Mart and FirstSight was an unlawful relationship between an optometrist and an eyeglass retailer.

The plaintiff alleged that she would not have purchased an eye exam if she had known that the optometrist was not “independent.” The Ninth Circuit considered the key question to be whether the plaintiff had “adequately alleged that her optometrist lacked independence.” The court answered in the affirmative, relying on various provisions in the leasing arrangement that, as a whole, indicated that “Wal-Mart and FirstSight were able to exercise undue influence over all their resident optometrists.” Evidence of such “undue” influence included Wal-Mart “setting rent as a percentage of revenue, prescribing minimum operating hours, and permitting the lessor to terminate leases at will.” The court also noted that there was anecdotal evidence that optometrists at other Wal-Mart locations were constrained in the rates they could charge and the therapies they could recommend.

However, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the claims based on violations of California laws that prohibited, among other things, retailers from directly or indirectly employing or maintaining an optometrist in stores that sell eyewear. The court reasoned that the plaintiff “fail[ed] to establish how her injury was fairly traceable to the purported statutory violations.”
Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Takes Broad View of What Is Required for a Licensee to Be “Independent”