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A federal judge has found Edenville Dam’s former owner liable for almost $120 million in damages to Michigan’s natural resources, MLive.com reported. U.S. District Court Judge Paul Maloney on Monday issued a default judgment against Lee Mueller, finding the bankrupt Nevada businessman liable for $119,825,000 in damages to fisheries and aquatic mussels. Maloney said that Mueller’s company, Edenville Hydro Property LLC, violated five parts of Michigan’s Natural Resources and Protection Act (NREPA) in a ruling that, absent an appeal, concludes the lawsuit filed against Mueller and his company, Boyce Hydro, by the state in 2020. According to the order, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) estimated that the 2020 Edenville Dam collapse and resulting flood caused more than $21 million in damage to state fisheries, and at least $90 million in damage to an ecosystem for freshwater mussels. The remaining $8.8 million stems from state law violations.

A law designed to protect patients from surprise medical bills is contributing to the financial distress of some medical-service providers, which say lengthy billing disputes and payment delays with insurers are hurting their ability to stay afloat, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The No Surprises Act, which took effect last year, aims to protect patients from surprise medical bills from out-of-network healthcare providers when there are disagreements over reimbursements between insurers and providers. Previously, providers often billed patients to make up for the amounts insurers were unwilling to pay. Numerous healthcare businesses, some owned by private equity, said the legislation is contributing to delays and reductions in payments by insurance companies, hurting their cash flows and earnings. A handful of major healthcare-service providers already have filed for chapter 11 protection this year, specifically naming the law as a major reason for their bankruptcies. These include physician-staffing companies Envision Healthcare and American Physician Partners as well as helicopter-ambulance operator Air Methods. The federal law removed patients from having to deal with payment disagreements but pitted healthcare providers against private insurers, leading to more than 489,000 claim disputes in an arbitration system from April 2022 until July 2023, according to the most recent data available. The number of disagreements submitted in the portal’s first year of operations is 14 times greater than what the U.S. Departments of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services had expected to receive in an entire calendar year, according to a government filing.

The new owners of Buybuy Baby recently reopened 11 stores, betting that many expectant parents still prefer to shop for strollers, cribs and car seats in person, the Wall Street Journal reported. Those stores had been closed for roughly three months after former parent company Bed Bath & Beyond’s bankruptcy. The baby-products retailer plans to open more than 100 new U.S. stores over the next three years, the company said, and eventually expand internationally. That number would put the company’s store footprint on par with where it was before the chapter 11 filing. They are also working on smaller-footprint stores, which could number 200 additional locations. “Having our experts in the store assist, take the time to demonstrate products, give good recommendations and sound advice…the ability to provide that support online is limited,” said Chief Executive Pete Daleiden, who was an executive at Buybuy Baby from 2018 to 2021. He returned to the company in August to take the top job.