Martin J. Bishop

Managed Care Litigation

• Developed precedent for Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA) claims in Utah district court in behavioral health lawsuits by successfully arguing at both the motion to dismiss and summary judgment stages that there needs to be a nexus between claim for coverage and alleged parity violation for the parity claim to stand.
• Obtained summary judgment on behalf of managed care organization in mental health residential facility coverage dispute on the basis that neither the wilderness program nor the boarding school at issue were qualified to provide mental health benefits as a residential treatment center under the terms of the relevant plan.
• Secured a dismissal with prejudice in a residential treatment behavioral health lawsuit alleging breach of contract and violations of the Texas Insurance Code on behalf of managed care organization who administered the plan for a state university.
• Secured dismissal of class action allegations on the pleadings in ERISA dispute in the Southern District of Ohio.
• Obtained judgments on the administrative record for commercial health plans involving on a behavioral health claims for benefits under Section 502(a)(1)(B) of ERISA.
• Secured dismissal with prejudice on behalf of a managed care client of a provider lawsuit based on an ERISA assignment of benefits that alleged underpayment of claims for infusion services.
• Secured $29.3 million judgment in arbitration hearing related to a hotly contested laboratory billing dispute.
• Obtained summary judgment in a $210 million Texas prompt pay penalty case in which plaintiff alleged that our client had underpaid or untimely paid several thousand healthcare claims and sought late-pay or underpayment penalties under the Texas Insurance Code prompt pay laws (TPPL).
• Obtained summary judgment in lawsuit in Southern District of Texas in which plaintiff alleged our client refused to cover larger quantities of medicated eye drops which led her to lose sight in one eye and caused her $6.5 million in damages. We argued that the approved quantities were in line with industry dispensing standards and that the plaintiff failed to offer any evidence that insufficient quantities of eye drops caused injury to her sight. The Court agreed with us on all points, finding that the plaintiff failed to raise a genuine issue regarding breach or causation.
• Represented several clients in separate putative class actions in California, Illinois, and Iowa involving the allegation that the clients did not properly provide and administer benefits for “comprehensive lactation counselling and support” services as mandated under the ACA.  Each named plaintiff alleged that she could not locate an in-network provider of those services and was forced to seek out-of-network care and asserts that such care should have been reimbursed at no cost.  Marty and his team defeated class action on this issue in two of the cases and won summary judgment in favor of its client on the third prior to class certification.
• Obtained dismissal of a nearly $12 million case brought by an out-of-network psychiatric and substance abuse facility provider in Texas.
• Obtained a dismissal with prejudice for client in a managed care reimbursement dispute case related to payment for non-emergency services rendered to its insureds.
• Successfully defeated a petition for a temporary restraining order for clients that would have imposed sweeping new legal obligations against our clients and other managed care organizations.
• Obtained dismissal with prejudice in a consolidated action filed in the Central District of California in breach of contract case brought by an out-of-network mental health and substance abuse treatment facility.
• Represented a managed care company in a provider contract arbitration related to the payment rate for a particular procedure under the terms of the provider agreement.
• Represented a health insurance company in a dispute with an out-of-network provider asserting promissory estoppel and other state-law claims related to supposed coverage inquiries.
• Represented a health insurance company, a managed care company, and health benefit holding companies in an ERISA dispute with an out-of-network provider regarding the rate of payment for services under insureds' benefit plans.

Other Complex Commercial Disputes

• Represented a national developer and related defendants in a case brought by a plaintiff seeking damages and rescission of approximately $10 million in condominium purchases, asserting claims under, among other things, the Illinois Consumer Fraud Act, common law fraud, breach of contract, and conspiracy.
• Represented a financial institution in achieving reversal of a decision by the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois when, after issuing a temporary restraining order, it failed to conduct a hearing on whether the court’s order freezing assets held at a bank violated principles of international comity, and would have improperly forced the bank to violate German law. In re Kosmond, 294 Ill. Dec. 184 (Ill. App. Ct. 2005).
• Represented a manufacturer in prosecuting claims against a former employee for breach of fiduciary duty and other torts related to the former employee’s startup of a competing business.
• Represented an office products manufacturing and supply company in a variety of international disputes arising out of an asset purchase agreement.
• Represented a financial institution in multiple related proceedings involving attempts by the manager of hundreds of senior living communities across the United States to reorganize and renegotiate debt in the context of an SEC receivership, and the bankruptcy of one of the guarantors of manager’s debt.
• Represented an insurance company in obtaining a preliminary injunction where the defendant, a former executive of the insurance company, breached his fiduciary duties when he took certain proprietary information belonging to the defendants and used it to start a competing business.
• Represented an international reinsurer in a nine-figure dispute and trial related to responsibility for liability under a reinsurance contract involving automotive insurance.
• Represented an office products manufacturing and supply company in a malicious prosecution case against an Indian company that filed lawsuits in multiple foreign venues in an alleged improper attempt to stop or diminish the value of a legitimate business transaction.
• Represented a financial institution in the litigation and successful negotiation of the removal of certain properties from a Securities and Exchange Commission receivership.
• Represented a financial services company in obtaining the dismissal of a case involving alleged damages resulting from the plaintiff’s purchase of four separate pools of FHA guaranteed loans for multi-family housing projects developed under the statutory and regulatory framework of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
• Represented financial services companies in class actions alleging violations of various consumer financial services statutes, including the Truth-in-Lending Act and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.
• Represented a financial services company against claims by the Illinois Securities Department involving alleged violations of the Illinois Securities Law.
• Represented a financial services company in numerous injunctive relief proceedings related to the enforcement of the company’s rights against departing employees who were alleged to have, among other things, violated their employment agreements.
• Represented a national tax preparation service in consumer class actions filed around the country alleging, on behalf of a variety of putative classes, various consumer financial claims related to tax refund products.
• Represented horseracing tracks against claims of conspiracy under RICO.
• Represented a high-frequency trading firm in emergency and injunctive proceedings related to a dispute arising from the departure of certain partners in the firm.
• Represented various health insurers, a health insurance benefit holding company and affiliates in a successful effort to have RICO claims dismissed, defeat two separate motions for class certification of a putative nationwide class of health care providers in an ERISA action, and obtain summary judgment on the claims of a subscriber plaintiff who sought to represent a class of health care subscribers related to allegations of recoupment. PCA v. BCBSA, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 146955 (N.D. Ill); 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7257 (N.D. Ill.); 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148689 (N.D. Ill.); 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 107077 (N.D. Ill).
• Represented financial institutions in obtaining the dismissal (affirmed on appeal) of a putative class action asserting claims under 18 U.S.C. section 1983 and the due process clause related to accounting for Social Security deposits after service of a citation to discovery assets. London v. RBS Citizens, N.A., et al., 600 F.3d 742 (7th Cir. 2010).
• Represented horseracing tracks in a successful effort to obtain an en banc hearing, where the Seventh Circuit vacated a prior panel opinion in a case involving the question of the Tax Injunction Act’s application to a claim for constructive trust over $200 million in taxes collected to assist the Illinois horseracing industry. Empress Casino Joliet Corp. v. Blagojevich, et al. 638 F.3d 519 (7th Cir. 2011).
• Assisted horseracing tracks in defeating constitutional challenges to an Illinois taxing statute related to the casino and horseracing industry. Empress Casino Joliet Corp., et al. v. Giannoulias, et al., 231 Ill. 2d 62 (Ill. 2008); Empress Casino Joliet Corp., et al. v. Giannoulias, et al., 129 S. Ct. 2764 (2009) (certiorari denied).

• Chambers USA: Illinois Litigation: General Commercial, 2013-2023 and Illinois Healthcare, 2024-2025
• Thomson Reuters: Stand-Out Lawyers list, 2025