Retained Overpayments Change the FCA Ball Game
False Claims Act defense attorneys have been warning government contractors, particularly Medicare and Medicaid providers, of increased risks and a reduced ability to defend against whistleblower...
View ArticleToumey Loses Stark/FCA Case Again
Jury verdicts in False Claims Act litigation are rare. Two in the same case are rarer still. On May 8, 2013, after just over four hours of deliberation, a jury in the Federal District Court of South...
View ArticleFalse Claims Act Update, May 2013
Three new FCA cases of interest were reported in the last few weeks. One was discussed previously on FCADefense.com in Toumey Loses Stark/FCA Case Again by Drew Howk. Another, Ulysses, Inc. v. United...
View ArticleEighth Circuit: Regulatory Noncompliance Does Not Violate FCA
The Eighth Circuit’s recent decision adds to a growing body of case law rejecting FCA relator allegations of regulatory noncompliance as the basis for FCA claims. It reinforces the position that when...
View ArticleRelator’s Damages and Documentation Theories Rejected in Halifax
By Drew B. Howk This week a Court in the Middle District of Florida dealt a blow to a whistleblower’s allegations of fraud in U.S. ex rel. Baklid-Kunz v. Halifax Hospital Medical Center ruling that:...
View ArticleFifth Circuit: Telecom Corporations Not Subject to FCA Claims on E-Rate...
By Drew B. Howk The Fifth Circuit rejected the government’s attempt to expand the FCA’s reach to include non-government funds overseen by a non-governmental entity simply because the government had the...
View ArticleSeventh Circuit: E-Rate Suit Survives Public Disclosure Bar
By Drew B. Howk The Seventh Circuit reversed a district court’s decision finding that it lacked jurisdiction over a whistleblower’s claim under the False Claim Act’s public disclosure bar. In U.S. ex...
View ArticleQui Tam Complaints to Be Reviewed by Criminal Division
By David B. Honig and Drew B. Howk Leslie R. Caldwell, Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, announced recently that all new qui tam complaints would be “shared by the Civil Division...
View ArticleSeptember 2014 FCA Update
Only one FCA case of interest was decided by a U.S. Circuit Court in September. In US ex rel Parikh v Brown, the Court found that a county hospital and its administrator’s participation in a “simple,...
View ArticleLast Week in the FCA
From October 1 through October 12, 2014, there were 14 federal cases reported which mentioned the False Claims Act. One was previously discussed in the September 2014 FCA Update. Eight more only...
View ArticleSafe Harbors less safe in Ohio
In a new case from the Southern District of Ohio, US_v_MillenniumRadiology, the court denied a motion to dismiss a False Claims Act suit, finding that compliance with a safe harbor could only be raised...
View ArticleFalse Claims Act Update – Public Disclosure and Original Source
Several FCA opinions have been issued since the last FCA Update. The most interesting is a District of Nevada case, US ex rel Guardiola v Renown Health. Renown Health was the parent company for two...
View ArticleNew 11th Circuit Case: Fraud with Particularity
Last week, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals issued its unpublished ruling in US ex rel. Mastej v. Health Management Associates, Inc. At issue was whether the relator’s Third Amended Complaint...
View ArticleSeventh Circuit Rejects Novel Fraud Theory
Relator Thulin was a pharmacist in Idaho working for Shopko, a Wisconsin company. He filed an FCA claim alleging Shopko defrauded Medicaid by failing to pass along private insurance plan prices to...
View ArticleDOJ Announces that 2014 Sees Record FCA Recoveries and Whistleblower Lawsuits
Yesterday, November 20, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) announced that the United States had recovered almost $6 billion from False Claims Act (“FCA”) litigation in 2014 – marking the first time the...
View ArticleEastern District of Tennessee Denies Interlocutory Appeal of Order Permitting...
In September, the District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee issued an order denying Defendants’ motions for summary judgment and permitting the government to use statistical sampling to...
View ArticleFirst Circuit: A More Detailed Complaint Fails to Pass First-to-File Bar
Today, the First Circuit Court of Appeals released a decision denying two Relators’ appeal of their False Claims Act action due to its failure to satisfy the Act’s first-to-file bar. Though the...
View ArticleSeventh Circuit: “Information and Belief” Insufficient under 9(b)
In U.S. ex rel. Grenadyor v. Ukranian Village Pharmacy, Inc. et al., the Seventh Circuit affirmed a trial court’s dismissal of a whistleblower’s complaint for its failure to provide sufficient...
View ArticleCourt Awards Prevailing FCA Defendant Costs
with Drew B. Howk On Monday, February 2, well-respected Federal District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff awarded costs to the prevailing Defendant in US ex rel. Associates Against Outlier Fraud v. Huron...
View ArticleSelf-Disclosure, the Public Disclosure Bar and the FCA – Uncertainty, Circuit...
Written by David B. Honig and Ritu Kaur Cooper. On February 3, 2015, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that disclosures to the public officials responsible for managing the subject of a False...
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