husband Host of the “Vision” program. Sunny Hostin, along with 200 other defendants charged with insurance fraud in a sweeping $459 million lawsuit in New York, could find himself tied up in court for years to come, according to legal experts.
Emanuel “Manny” Hostin, an orthopedic surgeon, is among dozens of doctors and medical personnel mentioned in the federal lawsuit, Which was filed last month by American Transit Insurance Co., a New York-based commercial auto insurer that insures Uber, Lyft and taxis in the state. Hostin is specifically accused of taking kickbacks by “fraudulently billing and operating” American Transit, according to the lawsuit.
He cites at least two of Hosten's patients who were… He was allegedly treated in January 2023 After being involved in “low impact” collisions that caused only minor damage. Although they suffered “mere soft tissue injuries,” both underwent arthroscopic surgery, the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit was filed under the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, in the Eastern District of New York — a strategy that legal experts told Fox News Digital is designed to have a chilling effect on behavior. It's also risky to embroil defendants like Hostin in years of complex court proceedings — and potentially be hit with huge payouts as a result.
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“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin. (Screenshot/ABC)
That's because RICO laws — passed in the 1970s as an attempt to crack down on Mafia activity and other organized crime — allow plaintiffs to win “treble damages,” which are damages equal to three times the amount of actual or compensatory damages.
In the American Transit case, that amounts to $459 million or more, three times the $153 million in compensatory damages.
Intimidation factor, chilling effect
Often times, these types of lawsuits are pursued with a particular strategy in mind, said Michael Merz, an associate professor of law at John Marshall Law School who specializes in criminal law and RICO cases.
“There's a lot more going on in using the RICO statute than just recovering damages,” Merz told Fox News Digital in an interview. “It changes behaviors. It changes attitudes. It changes the way business is done sometimes.”
RICO civil lawsuits are sometimes used as a means to compel people or stop certain oppressive behaviors and practices. In the case involving Hostin, this includes routinely overbilling doctors and ambulatory services, or overcharging patients to an unusual degree.
In the New York case, for example, “you have doctors who don't really want to be called criminals,” Mears said. “Just the charges alone (in) the civil RICO statute can be very scary, and be a very powerful tool” to stop objectionable practices.
That doesn't mean there won't be a flurry of courtroom activity for the defendants named in the American Transit lawsuit, including Hostin.
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Sunny Hostin speaks live in a segment from “The VIew.” (Screenshot/ABC)
Legal experts told Fox News Digital that civil RICO cases in today's world are a long game — often carrying a timeline of years, rather than months, to be processed in court.
Plaintiffs in civil RICO cases are often insurance companies that accuse a group of people of fraud, Jeffrey Grell, an attorney who specializes in RICO claims, told Fox News Digital in an interview.
In American Transit's lawsuit, the insurer accused Hostin and dozens of other medical practitioners of abusing New York law to artificially inflate or bill unnecessary medical treatments and profit from kickbacks.
No-fault laws require companies like American Transit to cover health care expenses “reasonably incurred” as a result of injuries to insured occupants. But the low burden of proof under no-fault laws also means they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation by medical practitioners.
American Transit alleges that Hostin and other defendants abused New York's no-fault laws to make “hundreds of millions” of dollars in fraudulent payments between 2009 and December 2024.
“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin. (92Y via YouTube)
Complex issues and long timelines
Civil RICO cases are often long and arduous for each of the individuals involved.
In fact, American Transit's 698-page lawsuit is among the largest civil RICO cases ever filed in New York — all of which warrant a lengthy resolution process for Hostin and the other defendants.
Courts “will look at the individual claims against each defendant to determine all the elements of a RICO claim, and all the elements of RICO claims are very complex,” Grell said.
Many, if not all, defendants will try to move to dismiss the case before discovery begins, an initial process that alone can take more than a year. Often, there will be a flurry of related motions filed by defendants in an attempt to get the court to approve their motion to dismiss, adding to the lengthy time frame.
After dismissal requests are resolved, the discovery process begins. This process can be long and complicated, because it involves every person named in the lawsuit, and each defendant's attorney will attempt to prove that their client individually does not meet the elements of a RICO case.
“Just like in any other civil lawsuit, the RICO law allows people to take depositions,” Mears said of the time frame for RICO cases. “It allows documentation to be collected. It allows discovery of the filling of records.”
Ultimately, it's a process that “opens up a whole path to knowing what's going on inside the organization — whether that's a doctor's office, a hospital, a physician group,” he said, and that allows prosecutors to request discovery and collect documents from every named individual.
This may cause the case to drag on for a longer period.
“In other words, the discovery process (in RICO cases) can be very scary,” Mears said. “It's a long game.”
For her part, Sunny Hostin contributed to her husband's work as a doctor through her role as host of “The View.”
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Recently, Huston referenced his work in a discussion about health insurance in the wake of an assassination UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson In New York City.
“Doctors are also suffering because of big corporations, doctors who want to do good, like my husband,” Houston said in this clip. She added that her husband, as an orthopedic surgeon, “operates on someone even though they have no insurance, and then has to sue health insurance companies to get paid for the work he trained his whole life to do.”
Houston's lawyers have previously denied all allegations against him, calling the filing a “sweeping, rambling and baseless lawsuit by an insurance company on the verge of bankruptcy,” according to the Daily Mail.
They did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on the allegations or any expected timeline in the RICO proceedings.
