Blum v. Yaretsky

New York required nursing homes to use a utilization review committee to assess whether Medicaid patients needed a different level of care; when the committee recommended transferring patients Yaretsky and Cuevas (plaintiffs) to lower-level facilities, the state adjusted their Medicaid benefits accordingly without providing notice or a hearing about the underlying transfer decision. Yaretsky and Cuevas sued state officials, including Commissioner Blum (defendant), on behalf of a class of Medicaid nursing-home patients, and lower courts found sufficient state action to support their Fourteenth Amendment claim; the Supreme Court granted certiorari.