In a win for employers, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that “…the False Claims Act’s anti-retaliation provision unambiguously excludes relief for retaliatory acts occurring after the employee has left employment.” Potts v. Center for Excellence in Higher Education, Inc., No. 17-1143 (10th Cir. Nov. 6, 2018) (emphasis added).
Background
Debbi Potts,…
We are seeing a growing number of False Claims Act (“FCA”), 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729 – 3733 cases where defendants test the sufficiency of relators’ pleadings, which is the heightened pleading standard under Rule 9(b). Rule 9(b) acts as a gatekeeping function by requiring that “in alleging fraud” a “party must state with particularity the…
The Justice Department announced that it secured over $3.5 billion in settlements and judgments from civil cases involving fraud against the government in the fiscal year ending September 30, 2015 (“FY2015”). This is the fourth year in a row that the Justice Department has recovered more than $3.5 billion in cases under the False Claims…
On November 18, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit issued a decision dismissing an employment applicant’s claims that he had been retaliated against under the False Claims Act (FCA), Environmental Reorganization Act (ERA) and four other environmental statutes. In Vander Boegh v. Energy Solutions, Inc., 14-5047 (6th Cir. Nov.…
The Fifth Circuit recently affirmed the dismissal of two Relators’ claims brought under the Federal False Claims Act (“FCA”), 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3733 based on the Relators’ lack of personal knowledge of the information in their Complaint. In requiring a federal False Claims Act relator to be an original source of the information underlying the…
Continuing a trend we reported in January 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice announced another multi-million dollar settlement of alleged False Claims Act (“FCA”) violations. In this case, Halifax Hospital Medical Center and Halifax Staffing, Inc. (collectively “Halifax”) agreed to pay $85 million to resolve allegations that they violated the False Claims Act by submitting…
Hospice of the Comforter, Inc. (HOTCI) agreed to pay $3 million to resolve allegations that it violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by submitting false claims to the Medicare program for hospice services provided to patients who were not eligible for the Medicare hospice benefit. HOTCI did not admit any liability in the settlement. The…
A federal court ordered Tuomey Healthcare System to pay $237,454,195 after a jury found that it had violated the Stark Law (restricting physician referrals and payments) and the False Claims Act (FCA) when it submitted 21,730 false claims involving physicians with whom it had financial relationships that violated the Stark Law. United States ex rel.
