When Hilda Sarkisyan marched into Cigna Corp.’s Philadelphia headquarters to demand an apology for her daughters death after the company refused to pay for a liver transplant, she got something other than an apology. She got the middle finger, literally.
"You guys killed my daughter," the diminutive San Fernando Valley real estate agent declared at the lobby security desk. "I want an apology."
Cigna employees, looking down into the atrium lobby from a balcony above, began heckling her, she said, with one of them giving her "the finger." Sarkisyan walked out, stunned and hurt.
"They showed me their true colors," she said. "Shame on them." Cigna later apologized for the 2008 incident, but it has now become -- unintentionally -- the central element of a lawsuit Sarkisyan and her husband, Grigor, are pressing against the health insurer. The suit began as a wrongful-death complaint, with the couple contending that Cigna's refusal to cover the transplant led to Nataline's death Dec. 20, 2007, in a case that drew national media attention.
A Los Angeles judge threw out the wrongful-death complaint, saying it was barred by a 1987 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that shields employer-paid healthcare plans from damages over their coverage decisions. But U.S. District Judge Gary Allen Feess said the Sarkisyans could pursue damages for any emotional distress caused by the Philadelphia incident. The ruling was bittersweet for the Sarkisyans and patient advocates, who say it points to the need for federal legislation to allow people to sue health insurers for the life-or-death decisions they make.
"They kill a beautiful 17-year-old girl, and I get to go after them for a finger? That's sick," Hilda Sarkisyan said.
The Sarkisyans contend that Cigna improperly refused the transplant that Nataline's UCLA physicians said at the time was urgently needed to save her life, and that the company reflexively issued a denial letter without looking into the specific circumstances. The company said at the time that, for Nataline, the operation would have been "experimental" and was not covered. Nine days later, amid a storm of publicity, Cigna agreed to cover the transplant. It was too late. Nataline died hours later.
"It was the worst thing in life," Hilda Sarkisyan said in a recent interview.
Mark Geragos, the high-profile trial lawyer who helped the family make its pleas to Cigna while Nataline was alive, filed the wrongful death suit on the family's behalf last year.
"If you don't sue, you can't make changes," Hilda Sarkisyan said. "It's not about the money. It's about the principle. They are just going to keep denying people care if we don't stop them."
Cigna said the dismissal of the wrongful-death case in Aprilshowed that the court "agreed with our position that the Sarkisyans' claims regarding Cigna's decision making were without merit.
In fact, the court did not consider the merits of the family's wrongful-death claims. Instead, it decided those claims could not be heard. Judge Feess cited rulings by the Supreme Court and others interpreting 1974's Employee Retirement Income Security Act, or ERISA, which governs employee retirement funds and benefit plans.
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