Legal pressure on orthopedic and spine providers came from multiple directions in the second quarter, spanning payer fraud suits, a kickback guilty plea and a device liability claim.
Here are five orthopedic lawsuits to know from second-quarter 2026:
- Palm Springs, Fla.-based Florida Orthopedics and Neurosurgery, which operates as University Orthopedic Care, was sued by Allstate over alleged personal-injury protection fraud. The insurer alleges the 13-location practice used a built-in kickback structure to multiply facility fees, billing Allstate a large facility fee when a patient was sent to an ASC and then selling the right to collect it to a related company for a fraction of the cost. The complaint, filed May 15, names practice owner Bradford Estra and Angel Rigueras, MD.
- The CFO of SpineFrontier, a spinal implant company, pleaded guilty to conspiring to pay more than $540,000 in bribes to surgeons to use the company’s products. Aditya Humad, of Cambridge, Mass., is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 6 and faces up to five years.
- Kevin Ward, former CEO of Des Moines, Iowa-based Iowa Orthopedic Center, was awarded $1.3 million by an arbitrator after disputing his 2023 termination. Mr. Ward sued for discrimination, retaliation and defamation after he was fired, and the arbitrator found the practice had violated his employment agreement.
- Former Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Tyrod Taylor reached a settlement in his malpractice lawsuit against orthopedic surgeon David Gazzaniga, MD. Mr. Taylor’s lung was punctured during a pain injection for cracked ribs in September 2020, and in 2021 he filed suit seeking at least $5 million.
- A patient filed a lawsuit in May against Abbott alleging her Eterna spinal cord stimulator was improperly programmed and worsened her pain. The suit names Abbott Laboratories and the FDA, which approved the device, and states the stimulator was implanted in December 2023 for chronic pain.
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