CINCINNATI, Ohio – A federal appeals court Thursday removed U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent from a First Amendment lawsuit brought by nine Cleveland area doctors after determining the judge was hostile and biased toward the plaintiffs.

The doctors filed the lawsuit in 2010, challenging a 1978 state law that prohibited candidates for Ohio attorney general or county prosecutor from accepting campaign contributions from recipients of Medicaid funding.

All nine of the doctors are Medicaid providers who wished to contribute to the campaigns of candidates, but were "thwarted in their ability to do so by the statute."

The doctors are Arthur Lavin, Michael Devereaux and Nathan Beachy of Shaker Heights; Jason Chao, Eric Schreiber and Peter Degolia of Cleveland Heights; Patricia Kellner of South Euclid; and Jerome Liebman and Constance Magoulias of Cleveland.

Subodh Chandra

"All of these physicians were strong advocates of health care reform, and they were alarmed by Mike DeWine, who was running for Attorney General and opposed health care reform," said attorney Subodh Chandra, one of about eight lawyers who worked on the case.

But when the doctors attempted to donate to DeWine's opponent, Richard Cordray, they were told such donations were illegal. So they filed the lawsuit.

Nugent twice ruled against the doctors, but was reversed on appeal by the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati, which found the law unconstitutional.

But when the doctors' lawyers asked to be compensated with more than $665,000 in fees and costs, a magistrate trimmed the award to $454,000 in fees and $6,440 in costs. Nugent further cut the award to $129,000 in fees and $6,300 in costs.

Nugent declined to comment Thursday.

Chandra said the substantial attorneys' fees and costs were directly attributable to the decision by Secretary of State Jon Husted to continue to defend the unconstitutional acts alleged in the lawsuit. He noted that none of the lawyers were compensated during the four years the lawsuit was being litigated.

In their appeal, the doctors contended Nugent had miscalculated the cost of their lawyers' work and abused his discretion, and asked for the case to be reassigned to a different judge.

Nugent said the taxpayers would bear the burden of the lawsuit's fees and costs, although the doctors were "abundantly capable of paying for representation."

Nugent said he suspected the lawsuit was a product of lawyers trying to drive up their legal fees, and not from the doctors' desire to make campaign contributions.

A three-judge court of appeals panel sided unanimously with the doctors.

In a nine-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Julia Smith Gibbons wrote that Nugent's aversion toward the doctors' wealth and his emphasis on the taxpayers' burden was apparent, and that his rulings were significantly motivated by these improper considerations.

Nugent showed a "distinct hostility" toward the doctors and created the appearance he was biased against them, Gibbons wrote.

The appeals court ordered that the case be reassigned to a different judge and that the lawyers' fees and costs be recalculated.

"The plaintiffs appreciate that the 6th circuit understands the hard work that is necessary for civil rights attorneys to vindicate constitutional rights," Chandra said.