John B. Shely

John’s practice focuses on managed care trials, including provider litigation, ERISA benefits and fiduciary litigation, and bad faith insurance practices litigation. He also has significant experience handling various types of commercial disputes for managed care companies, as well as companies in other industries.

John has served as first chair in jury and bench trials around the country. Most recently, John was lead trial counsel for a national drug store chain in a case where the Plaintiffs sought hundreds of millions of dollars in damages relating to alleged overpayments for prescriptions. The case was tried to a 12 person jury in state court in Delaware in May 2023. After two weeks of evidence, and after closing argument in the third week of the trial, the case was submitted to the jury. The jury returned a take-nothing verdict in favor of John’s client after less than three hours of deliberation.

Since 2015 alone, John has tried 22 cases in first-chair capacity, including jury verdicts in four states in both state and federal court, as well as many arbitrations. Some clients have called John an “everywhere” lawyer, meaning that he can try cases in many different jurisdictions and comfortably relate to juries. Clients hire John when they know a case will have to be tried to a jury.

John has also argued before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the Tenth Circuit, the Supreme Court of Texas, various Texas appellate courts and other appellate courts on many occasions. For more than three decades, John has represented managed care companies as lead counsel in high profile cases forming much of the law that governs this industry today. Notable cases include the representation of managed care companies in their successful challenge to Texas' HMO Health Care Liability Act and serving as lead counsel in the lower courts for two of the three cases that were consolidated and decided in Aetna Health Inc. v. Davila, 542 U.S. 200 (2004)—the seminal case on ERISA removal preemption.

Recently, much of John's practice has involved representing managed care companies in disputes with providers. These disputes include arbitrations or lawsuits with network providers, putative class actions by physicians, countering chargemaster abuse by out-of-network providers, and defending claims for millions of dollars in prompt pay penalties.

A significant area of his practice involves providers alleged to have engaged in large scale schemes involving improper or fraudulent billing practices. Notable among these is a case in which the client obtained a $41 million judgment against an out-of-network hospital for billing fraud involving fee forgiveness and kickbacks to physician-owners. He also has significant experience representing managed care companies in cases involving alleged fraudulent lab schemes.

John has handled many cases relating to pension claims and breach of fiduciary duty claims under ERISA. He also has defended many suits seeking to certify a plaintiff class. For instance, John represented managed care companies, winning class action suits that asserted i) a breach of fiduciary duty under ERISA for the alleged failure to disclose financial incentive arrangements, and ii) alleged violations of the Lanham Act. He has significant experience with respect to the scope of ERISA preemption and the application of the doctrine to various factual settings. John has also tried numerous ERISA benefits suits in federal court including injunction cases relating to COBRA issues and deselection of providers from managed care networks. Additionally, many other cases have been resolved in favor of clients, prior to trial, as a result of the granting of pretrial motions.

• Named Best Lawyer in Insurance Litigation, The Best Lawyers in America, 2023-2024
• Named to the Insurance and Healthcare/Life Sciences Trailblazers lists by The National Law Journal, 2021
• Selected as a Litigation Trailblazer, National Law Journal, 2018
• Selected as a Super Lawyer for General Litigation Law, Texas Monthly magazine, 2012-2023
• Named a Litigation Star, Texas, Benchmark Litigation, 2014-2024

• Houston Bar Association