Banning Lyon was a plaintiff in a 1990s

class action A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

lawsuit against National Medical Enterprises, now

Tenet Healthcare Tenet Healthcare Corporation is a for-profit multinational healthcare services company based in Dallas, Texas, United States. Through its brands, subsidiaries, joint ventures, and partnerships, including United Surgical Partners International (U ...

. His involvement in the lawsuit led to the publication of an autobiographical

op-ed An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...

piece in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' in October, 1993. Lyon was born and raised in

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

and was a founding member of the

Hagfish Hagfish, of the class Myxini (also known as Hyperotreti) and order Myxiniformes , are eel-shaped, slime-producing marine fish (occasionally called slime eels). They are the only known living animals that have a skull but no vertebral column, a ...

punk Rock band.

Music

Banning Lyon co-founded the punk rock band Hagfish with Doni and

Zach Blair Zach Blair (born December 26, 1974) is an American musician, best known as the lead guitarist and backing vocalist for Chicago-based punk rock band Rise Against. Before joining Rise Against in early 2007, Blair was a member of melodic hardcore ...

in 1991. Lyon drummed for the band for approximately two years, opening for bands such as

ALL All or ALL may refer to: Language * All, an indefinite pronoun in English * All, one of the English determiners * Allar language (ISO 639-3 code) * Allative case (abbreviated ALL) Music * All (band), an American punk rock band * ''All'' (All al ...

Swervedriver Swervedriver are an English alternative rock band formed in Oxford in 1989 around core members Adam Franklin and Jimmy Hartridge. Between 1989 and 1998, the band released four studio albums and numerous EPs and singles despite a considerable f ...

, and

Poster Children Poster Children is an American indie rock band formed at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana in 1987.skate punk Skate punk (also known as skatecore and skate rock) is a skater subculture and punk rock subgenre that developed in the 1980s. Originally a form of hardcore punk that had been closely associated with skate culture, skate punk evolved into a mo ...

band Cleaners, based in the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex. They recorded and released ''Walking on Eggshells'' before ultimately splitting up in 1999.

Class action lawsuit

Shortly after his finally leaving Hagfish in 1993 Lyon became involved in a

suit against National Medical Enterprises (NME). NME is now known as

. The suit was led by Robert Andrews of the law firm Andrews and Clark located in Ft. Worth, Texas. Lyon authored an autobiographical

piece for ''

'' that was published on October 13, 1993. The article details his experience with having been hospitalized in Brookhaven Psychiatric Pavilion, a hospital owned by NME. Less than a week later, on October 18,

Business Week ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

published an article detailing Lyon’s story, going on to reveal further details regarding the Federal government’s involvement in an ongoing investigation of NME. That investigation led to what would become one of the largest health-care-fraud cases in American medical history. Shortly after the publishing of the articles National Medical Enterprises agreed to settle out of court. In June 1994, Peter Alexis and NME pleaded guilty to federal criminal and civil charges that included paying kickbacks to doctors in return for patient referrals. The chain paid a $379 million fine. At the time it was the largest fine levied for health care fraud. In February 1995 the doctors that had been defendants in the

suit in which Lyon had been involved sued Lyon, his attorney Robert Andrews, and others. The doctors claimed that Lyon and the others had defamed them, citing Lyon’s statements made in the

Dallas Morning News ''The Dallas Morning News'' is a daily newspaper serving the Dallas–Fort Worth area of Texas, with an average print circulation of 65,369. It was founded on October 1, 1885 by Alfred Horatio Belo as a satellite publication of the ''Galvesto ...

and

. The case was ultimately dropped by the doctors.

Outdoors

In the summer of 2010 Lyon lived and worked as first mate aboard the SV Valora based out of

Vineyard Haven, Massachusetts Vineyard Haven is a community within the town of Tisbury, Massachusetts on the island of Martha's Vineyard. It is listed as a census-designated place (CDP) by the U.S. Census Bureau with a population of 2,114 as of the 2010 census. The area was ...

. He was briefly featured in an article in the Martha's Vineyard Times. Lyon now lives in northern California and works as an outdoor educator.

References

{{reflist American punk rock musicians Class action lawsuits Yosemite National Park