A Sutter Health Network hospital in San Francisco.

Sutter Health, Northern California's largest hospital chain, has agreed to settle claims that it used its market power to artificially inflate health care prices in the Bay Area and the Sacramento Valley.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Anne-Christine Massullo, who was overseeing consolidated lawsuits brought on behalf of employers, employee trusts that pay for worker health services, and the state of California, announced the settlement from the bench Wednesday morning prior to rescheduled opening statements before thanking jurors. Multiple jurors made audible expressions of relief upon their dismissal from what was expected to be a three-month trial heavy with economic experts and testimony on hospital pricing.

Massullo said that details of the proposed settlement would be made public in the run-up to a preliminary class action settlement conference that she anticipates will occur in February or March.

Plaintiffs originally sued Sutter Health in 2014 claiming the company's contract practices artificially inflated prices. The California attorney general filed similar claims against Sutter in 2018.

Opening statements had previously been scheduled for Oct. 10, but Massullo granted the parties' joint request to delay the proceedings after several jurors screened for the three-month trial dropped out for health or employment reasons.

Plaintiffs were represented at Wednesday's proceedings by lawyers from Pillsbury & Coleman, Farella Braun + Martel and the California attorney general's office. Pillsbury & Coleman's Richard Grossman declined to comment on the terms of the deal to reporters outside the courtroom Wednesday. "You heard what the judge said," Grossman said. A spokesperson for the attorney general said that parties "have reached a settlement agreement" but that the office could not comment until the final agreement is approved by the court.

Lawyers for Sutter Health, a team of lawyers from Keker, Van Nest & Peters; Jones Day; and Bartko, Zankel, Bunzel & Miller, didn't respond to reporters' questions upon leaving the courtroom Wednesday. Amy Thoma Tan, a spokesperson for Sutter Health, said only that the parties have reached a deal to settle the case.

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