• The judge ordered Leapfrog Group to remove its safety grades for the five hospitals and stop using its current grading methodology.
• The five hospitals are Good Samaritan Medical Center, St. Mary's Medical Center, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, Delray Medical Center and West Boca Medical Center.
• The hospitals' lawsuit alleged Leapfrog operated a "pay-for-play" scheme, penalizing facilities that did not participate in its surveys.
• Leapfrog's president stated the organization stands by its methodology and plans to appeal the court's ruling.

A federal judge has ruled in favor of five Palm Beach Health Network hospitals, finding that a national hospital-rating organization used deceptive practices in assigning the medical centers either failing or below-satisfactory ratings on patient safety.

In a written order issued on March 6, U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks ordered the Leapfrog Group to remove from its website its fall 2024, spring 2025 and fall 2025 grades for Good Samaritan Medical Center, Delray Medical Center, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, St, Mary's Medical Center and West Boca Medical Center.

Issuing his ruling at the end of a bench trial, Middlebrooks also ordered the watchdog group to stop using either its current grading methodology or similar ones. In a lawsuit filed in April 2025, the Palm Beach Health Network alleged that Leapfrog orchestrated a "pay-for-play" scheme, favoring hospitals that participate in the organization's surveys while failing those that don't.

“This ruling validates what hospitals across the country have experienced firsthand: Leapfrog is an organization built on deceptive and unfair practices that harms the very same patients it claims to serve," Maggie Gill, Eastern Group President, Palm Beach Health Network, said in a prepared statement. "We brought this lawsuit because patients deserve transparency."

Leapfrog President and CEO Leah Binder said the organization intends to appeal the judge's ruling. Binder said Leapfrog stands by its methodology, including nuances disputed by the Palm Beach Network hospitals.

"What these hospitals failed to demonstrate is if they are safer than we say they are," she said.

Court records show that the Palm Beach Health Network, owned by Tenet Healthcare, stopped participating in the Leapfrog survey during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a change in the grading methodology in 2024, three network hospitals received F" grades and two received "D" grades that fall. Hospital executives testified that several patients refused care at their facilities after seeing the Leapfrog ratings.

Attorneys for the medical centers argued that the ratings were not only inaccurate but also dangerous — driving patients away from safe facilities and into the waiting rooms of worse ones. Leapfrog denied the pay-for-play allegations, with its attorneys arguing that that organization's patient safety data is credible.

In his ruling, Middlebrooks wrote that acting as a watchdog did not grant Leapfrog the right to access a hospital's private data. Middlebrooks also wrote that the organization cannot use its ability to influence consumer decisions to pressure hospitals to participate in its activities.

"In other words, Leapfrog does not have a right to the benefit of Plaintiffs’ participation; conversely, it does not have the right to punish them when they have not received that benefit," he said.