August 9, 2017
False Claims Act Information
The First-to-File Rule One of the many procedural obstacles that a potential qui tam plaintiff must overcome is the first-to-file (“FTF”) rule. This provision of the False Claims Act (“FCA”) states that “no person” other than the Government may intervene or bring a related action based on the facts underlying […]
August 1, 2017
False Claims Act Information
The Third Circuit has repeatedly held that “to constitute ‘allegations or transactions,’ the public disclosure must either allege the actual fraud, or must allege both the misrepresented state of facts and the true state of facts such that an inference of fraud may be drawn.” United States ex rel. Morgan […]
July 26, 2017
False Claims Act Legal News
The Ninth Circuit applied the materiality requirement for claims under the False Claims Act (“FCA”) and provided guidance for the application of the Supreme Court’s seminal decision on the FCA’s materiality requirement in Universal Health Servs., Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar.[1] The False Claims Act’s Materiality Requirement Under […]
July 24, 2017
Contractor Fraud
We previously wrote about the adverse inference permitted by the court in United States ex rel. Scutellaro v. Capitol Supply, 2017 WL 1422364 (D.D.C. Apr. 19, 2017). That inference allowed the whistleblower and the government to prove the falsity element of their claims against a supplier of office products to […]
July 21, 2017
Contractor Fraud
Earlier this year, the D.C. District Court denied cross-motions for summary judgment in a False Claims Act (“FCA”) case alleging that defendant Capitol Supply sold document shredders manufactured in China through the General Services Administration (“GSA”) website, in violation of the Trade Agreements Act (“TAA”). United States ex rel. Scutellaro […]
July 19, 2017
False Claims Act Information
By Sherrie Savett In Part I of this blog series, we established that Courts have discretion to vacate, but it should not be used “absent exceptional circumstances.” Amaefule v. Exxonmobil Oil Corp., 630 F. Supp. 2d 42, 43 (D.D.C. 2009) (quoting U.S. Bancorp Mortg. Co. v. Bonner Mall P’ship, 513 […]
July 17, 2017
False Claims Act Information
By Sherrie Savett The Motivation to Vacate Often the parties in a hotly contested case want to settle, but the removal of a negative opinion affecting one side or the other is even more important than the money involved. This can be true for defendants who want to remove a […]
July 14, 2017
False Claims Act Legal News
On May 31, 2017, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey allowed relators’ False Claims Act (“FCA”) lawsuit against Janssen to proceed to litigation. United States et al. v. Johnson & Johnson, et al., Civ. A. No. 12-7758, 2017 WL 2367050 (D.N.J. May 31, 2017). Although […]
July 12, 2017
False Claims Act Legal News
On May 1, 2017, in United States ex rel. Petratos v. Genentech, Inc., 855 F.3d 481 (3d Cir. 2017), the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit endorsed a tri-partite approach in analyzing the medical necessity theory of liability under the False Claims Act. While the Third Circuit […]
July 10, 2017
False Claims Act Information
Early Public Disclosure Bar In the early 1940s, some enterprising individuals filed False Claims Act (“FCA”) actions based not on their own independent knowledge of a fraud but on information revealed in criminal indictments. S.Rep. No. 99–345, at 10–11 (1986). This harmed the government because the FCA required the government […]
July 7, 2017
Healthcare Fraud
We wrote earlier about the important holding in one of this Firm’s cases, U.S. ex rel. Groat v. Boston Heart Diagnostics Corp., 2017 WL 2533341 (D.D.C. June 9, 2017), regarding the responsibility of a medical laboratory to ascertain whether lab tests ordered by physicians are medically necessary. That opinion also […]
July 5, 2017
False Claims Act Information
In 1986, in an effort “to strike a balance between encouraging private persons to root out fraud and stifling parasitic lawsuits,” United States ex rel. Zizic v. Q2Administrators, LLC, 728 F.3d 228, 235 (3d Cir. 2013), Congress narrowed the the public disclosure bar so that more whistleblowers would file cases. […]