Federal Appeals Court Ends Antitrust Litigation Against NRMP

The National Resident Matching Program, or NRMP, will remain intact as a result of a June 1 federal appeals court decision (PDF file: 4 pages / 359 KB. More about PDFs.) that affirms a lower court's dismissal of antitrust litigation against the program.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia upheld the U.S. District Court's August 2004 dismissal of the lawsuit, Paul Jung, M.D., et al. v. Association of American Medical Colleges, et al.

Filed in 2002, the lawsuit claimed the Association of American Medical Colleges, or AAMC, and 35 other associations and academic health centers had violated antitrust laws by conspiring to "illegally restrain competition in the market for resident physician services" through the NRMP, which also was named as a defendant.

In April 2004, Congress passed the Pension Funding Equity Act of 2004, one section of which specifically exempted the NRMP from antitrust violations. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Friedman later ruled that the new legislation rendered the lawsuit moot. It is within Congress' power to make such changes to substantive law, said the appeals court decision, "even when doing so affects pending litigation."

"Unless the plaintiffs can convince the entire appellate court to re-hear their appeal or convince the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case, this decision means that the dark cloud of this destructive lawsuit has finally lifted," said AAMC President Jordan Cohen, M.D., in an AAMC news release. "The National Resident Matching Program can continue to provide the nation with a fair and efficient process to train the highly skilled physicians American needs and deserves."