Mar 202014

Limiting Discovery and Preventing Claim Smuggling in False Claims Act Cases

Scott D. Stein
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A. Brian Albritton at the False Claims Act and Qui Tam Law blog has an interesting post titled “Limiting Discovery and Preventing Claim Smuggling in False Claims Act Cases.” The post discusses a recent opinion in U.S. ex rel. Rigsby v. State Farm Fire and Casualty Co., Civil No. 1:06CV433-HSO-RHW (S.D. Miss. Feb. 21, 2014), in which relators who had succeeded at trial on their FCA claims sought post-verdict discovery to look for evidence of other false claims. As the post explains, “the court refused to permit the relators additional discovery in order to expand their claims into areas where they did not have knowledge and when it was unclear whether other claims really existed. . . .[T]he Court noted that satisfying Rule 9(b) with ‘sufficient detail’ and defeating a motion to dismiss permits a relator access to the discovery process, but discovery should be ‘targeted’ only to ‘the claims alleged, avoiding a search for new claims.'”

Scott D. Stein

Chicago

sstein@sidley.com

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