Two Health Care Providers’ Critical—Yet Curious—Search for Bankruptcy Court Jurisdiction

Two recent decisions reached completely opposite results about whether disputes affecting the fate of a health care debtor’s business operations (not to mention patient care and treatment of creditors) might be litigated and resolved in the bankruptcy courts. Both decisions turned in large part on the interpretation of statutory provisions that are not models of clarity. Although these differing results might be explained in part by the specifics of the disputes and their procedur- al postures, the decisions are instructive to future health care debtors aiming to continue operations while availing themselves of chapter 11’s perceived hospitable and speedy dispute-resolution process.