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"                      <p class=\"imgtitle\">Mudge</p>            Madison County Circuit Judge William Mudge must decide whether Fifth District appellate judges who stopped a Lakin Chapman class action against Travelers Insurance also stopped one against Employers Mutual Casualty.<br /><br />  Mudge took it under advisement on Sept. 30, after a hearing where Employers lawyer Thomas Pender compared the Fifth District decision for Travelers to a torpedo.<br /><br />  In both cases, former circuit judge Daniel Stack certified class actions and appointed local chiropractor Frank Bemis as class representative.<br /><br />  Mudge asked Pender, \"So you think this is the death knell in the kind of cases of this nature?\"<br /><br />  Pender said, \"Based on this provider agreement, which is the same provider agreement, yes.\"<br /><br /> \"Based on the payor agreements which are virtually identical, yes,\" Pender said.<br /><br />\"It's the same class representative, Dr. Frank Bemis. It's the same complaint with the same four theories of recovery.\"<br /><br />  Robert Schmieder of Lakin Chapman answered, \"The Travelers opinion was anything but a torpedo.\"<br /><br />  He said plaintiffs in the Travelers case would amend the complaint.<br /><br />  \"That case is still alive,\" he said. We're going to be back.\"<br /><br />  Pender replied, \"That further action is going to be Dr. Coy's and Dr. Bemis's single stand alone causes of action against Travelers.<br /><br /> \"It will not go back as a class action.<br /><br /> \"Maybe Dr. Bemis does have a stand alone claim for his $14 against EMC under these theories, not a class action.\"<br /><br />  The former Lakin Law Firm filed a series of insurance suits for Bemis in 2005, ahead of the effective date of a national law that steered most new class actions to federal courts.<br /><br />  Stack interpreted the Travelers case as a contract dispute, but Fifth District judges ruled that no contract existed between the insurer and providers.<br /><br />  Employers then asked Mudge to reconsider Stack's class certification order.<br /><br />  Two days before the hearing, the Illinois Supreme Court denied Bemis leave to appeal the Travelers decision.<br /><br />  At the hearing, Pender said Fifth District judges found Bemis agreed to accept reduced reimbursements when he signed a preferred provider contract.<br /><br />  \"Nowhere in that contract was the doctor told that he would get an increased volume of patients,\" Pender said. <br /><br />  Mudge asked Jonathan Piper of Lakin Chapman, \"What about this software license agreement, is this is or is it not a payor agreement?\"<br /><br />  Piper said, \"That's the number one question in this case, is there a contractual relationship here?<br /><br />  \"The provider has a contract with the network, the network has a contract with the payor, and the payor has policies with the patients.<br /><br />   \"The provider is looking for some sort of increased volume in patient volume through steerage, in return for which he gets discounts on his bills.<br /><br />  \"Even if First Health has a payor agreement with First Isaac, which we haven't seen, that may not be a payor agreement because they don't have an obligation to provide health care services or benefits.<br /><br />  \"Is Employers claiming that First Isaac is the authorized representative of First Health?<br /><br /> , \"That's the big issue on the merits that has to be resolved in the case.\"<br />  <br />He meant Fair Isaac, third party defendant in the case.<br /> <br />\"They cannot turn this software agreement into a payor agreement under the definition of what a payor agreement is,\" Piper said. <br /><br />   \"Was Employers really part of the network based on what the providers had agreed had to happen before they got discounts?\"<br /> <br /> For Fair Isaac, Richard Lageson said plaintiffs never directed a discovery request to his client in six years.<br /> <br /> \"Fair Isaac is not a payor,\" Lageson said.<br /> <br /> \"They are a software licensing company,\" he said. \"This case should end now.<br />  <br />\"We haven't been willing to settle.<br /><br />  \"This case has some flawed theories and some flawed facts,\" he said.<br /> <br /> Robert Schmieder of Lakin Chapman said, \"They don't have a payor agreement.\"<br /> <br /> \"Not one of the things Employers did was legitimate,\" Schmieder said.<br />  <br />Pender said, \"For them to say there is no payor agreement is silly because that was the basis of their class definition.\"<br /> <br />  \"Dr. Bemis was never told what counsel is now arguing he should have been told, that this was a payor agreement between a payor like EMC and First Health,\" Pender said. <br /><br />  He said the Travelers decision was the elephant in the room.<br /><br />  \"It is the law now,\" Pender said. <br /><br />  Schmieder said, \"Is it an elephant or is it a dog?<br /><br /> \"That's the issue that we teed up, and that's the issue that's common to everybody, and that's why a class action procedure works here.\"<br /><br />  Mudge said, \"I'm going to reexamine the submissions and the Travelers case and issue an order.\"<br /><br />  As of Nov. 9, it remained under advisement.    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