A Medical Device Daily

Tenet Healthcare (Dallas) said that U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz in San Diego set a tentative date of March 29 to begin a second trial in the case titled “U.S. of America v. Barry Weinbaum, Tenet HealthSystem Hospitals and Alvarado Hospital Medical Center.“

Last week, a San Diego federal jury in the first trial was unable to reach a verdict, and the judge therefore declared a mistrial. Tenet HealthSystem Hospitals is a Tenet subsidiary.

At this week's hearing, Lorenz did not issue a ruling on Tenet's motion for acquittal, but he indicated that he would deny the portion of the motion regarding single counts of conspiracy against all the defendants. He reserved his ruling on the other 18 counts.

“If the prosecutors retry this case, it will be expensive, time-consuming and unfortunate,“ said E. Peter Urbanowicz, Tenet's general counsel. “We still hope the prosecutors decide that it serves no purpose to retry this case and it is in the best interests of everyone to move forward and address the bigger issues.“

He added: “There is no reason to believe another jury will reach any different result. If necessary, however, we will defend ourselves vigorously against these charges in a second trial because we still believe they are unwarranted.“

Tenet Healthcare, through its subsidiaries, owns and operates acute-care hospitals, as well as related healthcare services.