In nearly complete legal 180, federal appeals court spares rural Wisc. IDS

After suffering two costly legal losses, a provider-owned rural Wisconsin integrated delivery system under attack by one of the state's most powerful payers has won a potentially sweeping legal victory. A federal appeals court has rejected charges by Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Wisconsin and the Blues' HMO, CompCare, that the Marshfield Clinic monopolized a 10-county market in north-central Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Blues took Marshfield to court early last year, charging the clinic with controlling such a large section of the north-central Wisconsin market that CompCare couldn't gain a foothold. A federal jury in January agreed, slapping the rural IDS with a $48.5 million damage award for 19 counts of anticompetitive conduct. A federal district court judge later shrank the damages--but did little to the verdict. Charles J. Steele, an antitrust attorney with Washington, D.C.'s Foley & Lardner, explains what happened next.