Health Law Daily Wrap Up, GENERAL HEALTH CARE NEWS—D. Nev.: Nevada federal court allows amendment but dismisses HCA Healthcare for lack of jurisdiction, (Jun 12, 2026)

By Patricia K. Ruiz, J.D.

Court finds no basis to attribute subsidiary hospitals’ contacts to parent holding company.

A federal court in Nevada granted a patient leave to file a second amended complaint in a healthcare dispute while dismissing HCA Healthcare, Inc. for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court held that the liberal amendment standard under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15 and considerations of judicial economy favored allowing amendment and mooting pending merits challenges to the prior complaint. At the same time, the court concluded that the patient failed to establish that the nonresident parent company purposefully directed conduct toward Nevada or that its subsidiaries’ contacts could be imputed to it (Burch v. HCA Healthcare, Inc., No. 2:25-cv-01408-JAD-MDC (D. Nev. June 8, 2026)).

In an order resolving multiple motions, the court addressed claims brought by patient Jade Burch arising from emergency-room treatment at several Las Vegas hospitals and subsequent alleged retaliation after she complained through risk-management channels. The patient asserted federal claims including under Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Rehabilitation Act, as well as state-law tort claims.

Leave to amend, motion to dismiss. The court granted the patient’s motion for leave to amend, finding that Rule 15’s directive that courts “freely give leave when justice so requires” applied with “extreme liberality.” The court emphasized that amendment was sought before the scheduling deadline, discovery remained open, and no trial date had been set, undercutting any claim of undue prejudice.

The court rejected the hospitals’ arguments that amendment should be denied due to delay, procedural defects, or futility, concluding that hospitals had not demonstrated prejudice and that sufficiency challenges would be better addressed through motions directed to the operative pleading. The court also found that the proposed amended complaint materially differed from the prior pleading, including additional factual allegations and new defendants, making it inefficient to rule on a motion to dismiss the superseded complaint.

As a result, the court denied the hospital defendants’ motion to dismiss as moot and without prejudice to reasserting challenges against the amended complaint.

Motion to strike. The court denied the plaintiff’s motion to strike a Form 10-K excerpt attached to HCA Healthcare’s reply brief. The court concluded that the exhibit was not improper new evidence because it directly responded to the plaintiff’s reliance on other portions of the same public filing and did not introduce a new theory.

Lack of personal jurisdiction. Separately, the court granted HCA Healthcare’s motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(2), holding that the plaintiff failed to establish specific personal jurisdiction over the company. Applying Ninth Circuit precedent, the court explained that specific jurisdiction requires a showing that the defendant purposefully directed conduct at the forum, the claims arise out of forum-related activities, and the exercise of jurisdiction is reasonable. The patient bears the burden on the first two prongs.

The court determined that the patient’s allegations did not satisfy the purposeful-direction requirement. Although she argued that HCA Healthcare promulgated enterprise-wide policies and exercised centralized control over affiliates, the court found that her showing “stops at affiliation, enterprise language, and alleged systemwide coordination.”

Critically, the court held that a parent-subsidiary relationship alone is insufficient to impute a subsidiary’s forum contacts to the parent absent an agency or alter-ego relationship. The patient did not plausibly allege either. While corporate filings and ownership documents showed that HCA Healthcare sat at the top of the hospitals’ ownership chain, they did not establish that the parent directed the specific conduct at issue or controlled the subsidiaries to the degree required for jurisdictional attribution.

The court also credited a declaration stating that HCA Healthcare is a non-operating holding company with no employees, does not conduct business in Nevada, and did not participate in the plaintiff’s care. The court found that public filings using collective terms like “we” and “our” did not contradict that characterization when read in context.

Because the patient failed to establish purposeful direction, the court did not reach the remaining prongs of the specific-jurisdiction analysis.

Jurisdictional discovery. The court also denied the plaintiff’s request for jurisdictional discovery. The court held that the plaintiff had not identified controverted jurisdictional facts or shown that further discovery would produce a more satisfactory showing of jurisdiction. The court concluded that the request amounted to a search for evidence supporting jurisdiction rather than development of an already plausible theory, which is insufficient to warrant discovery.

The case is No. 2:25-cv-01408-JAD-MDC.

Judge: Dorsey, J.

Attorneys: Jade Riley Burch, pro se. Michael E. Prangle (Hall Prangle LLC) for HCA Healthcare, Inc.

Companies: HCA Healthcare, Inc.

Cases: CaseDecisions BillingNews EMTALANews NevadaNews