BakerHostetler partner gave 'evasive and nonresponsive' deposition testimony, motion says
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Deposition answers by a BakerHostetler partner were so evasive that he should sit for repeat questioning at the offices of a special master who can intervene to resolve disputes, according to a motion filed by lawyers with Patterson Belknap.
The motion alleges the BakerHostetler partner, Lee H. Rosebush, “consistently interposed lengthy, nonresponsive, and scripted answers to even the most basic of questions.” Law.com and Law360 have coverage.
The motion says the special master, Dennis Cavanaugh, should direct Rosebush to answer questions in the new deposition and intervene, if needed, “to prevent the recurrence of Rosebush’s misconduct.”
The motion is dated March 3 but was filed this week.
Rosebush is a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Roche Diagnostics Corp. alleging he aided an insurance fraud scheme for BakerHostetler’s then-client, the pharmacy company Alliance Medical Holdings. That suit has been combined with a suit by LifeScan Inc. for discovery. The companies allege Alliance billed insurers for more expensive strips packaged for retail sale, rather than the less expensive mail-order strips it had purchased on the secondary market.
BakerHostetler is also named as a defendant in a suit by a bankruptcy trustee for Alliance that alleges the scheme caused the makers of diabetes test strips to wrongly pay more than $100 million in rebates. That suit claims BakerHostetler installed Rosebush on Alliance’s board of directors “to cement the close relationship between Alliance and Baker.”
The deposition motion alleges Rosebush “played an integral role in the fraud by facilitating its concealment.” The deposition was intended to establish he knew of and participated in the fraud. But Rosebush would change the subject when he didn’t want to answer, preferring to talk about pharmacy benefit manager audits, the motion says.
“Whenever a truthful answer would reflect poorly on him,” the motion says, Rosebush “would veer off course and reiterate—often with identical words, emphases, cadence, and gestures—his scripted, and completely non-responsive, speech about the nature of the PBM audits.”
When lawyers for the test-strip companies followed up on the “wholly nonresponsive answers,” Rosebush’s lawyer would assert meritless “asked-and-answered” objections, the motion says.
Rosebush didn’t immediately respond to the ABA Journal’s request for comment in an email and voice mail.
