A teleplay, on spec.

Donald P. Bellisario
Paramount Pictures
Los Angeles, Calif.

Dear Mr. Bellisario:

Last night, I watched with a great deal of interest your new TV show, First Monday, about the U.S. Supreme Court. Congratulations. Everyone in the Supreme Court was talking about it today. Well, that and the fox that apparently entered the court building through the parking garage on Sunday and has yet to be caught.

Anyhow. Having already tackled some fairly monster issues with the first episode, i.e., the death penalty, immigration law, and cross dressing—and with a show about abortion rights scheduled for this Friday, I wanted to suggest a possible topic for your next episode, based on a true case I just watched today. The issue is—are you ready?—pre-emption doctrine and ERISA law. I know. Huge.

Below please find a dramatic treatment of today's case, using your characters. It really would, I think, make a riveting and dramatic show.

Open in Justice Joe Novelli's chambers, where the newly appointed justice has forgotten, again, to wear his shoes to court. (This was a very funny gag in the first episode, and I think we could carry it through the entire season, dressing the justice in feathered mules, ruby slippers, etc., as the term goes on.) Novelli's aggressively unappealing female law clerk, Ellie, bursts into his office without knocking, waving a legal brief dramatically before her.

Ellie: Justice Novelli! Have you read the pleadings in this new ERISA case, Rush Prudential HMO v. Moran? My God, Mr. Justice, Rush Prudential, this evil HMO, tried to keep a poor disabled, handicapped woman from having a $95,000 neurological surgery that could save her arm. The surgery cured her! And now they won't pay! (She breaks down sobbing.) Even though an outside arbiter decided the surgery really was medically necessary.

Novelli: Hm. Let me see that pleading. Looks like an ERISA case, Ellie. That means that whatever we decide here today will change the entire course of history. (He reads, rapidly.) Yes, it would seem that the state of Illinois enacted a statute establishing an independent review panel that would arbitrate insurance disputes between enrollees and their HMOs. (He reads on.) Moreover, it would seem that 40 other states have enacted similar legislation, evidently to protect consumers from medical necessity decisions that were being made by extremely powerful HMOs. In the Illinois case, it would seem the HMO refused to reimburse this poor woman, even though the independent arbiter deemed her surgery a medical necessity.

Ellie: Oh woe unto the poor and downtrodden.

Enter Miguel,Novelli's conservative law clerk, in expensive shoes. Miguel immediately surmises what is going on and attempts to dissuade the judge from siding against the HMOs.