Supreme Court Agrees to Resolve Circuit Split on FCA Statute of Limitations in Non-Intervened Cases
On November 16, the Supreme Court agreed to resolve a percolating circuit split on an issue of critical importance under the FCA: are relators in non-intervened cases entitled to invoke the FCA’s alternate 10 year statute of limitations? The grant of certiorari in Cochise Consultancy, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Hunt, 887 F.3d 1081 (11th Cir. 2018) makes it the third Supreme Court case in recent years addressing the False Claims Act’s limitations periods. (more…)
Court Compels Medicare Advantage Plan to Comply With CID for Testimony in Diagnosis Coding Investigation
On November 13, 2018, a magistrate judge issued a report to the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York recommending that the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) petition to compel deposition testimony from Anthem regarding its procedures and processes for verifying diagnoses for Medicare Advantage payments be granted and that a date be set for Anthem’s witness to testify. DOJ is seeking the testimony in connection with its investigation of Anthem as part of its broader enforcement efforts under the FCA focused on the Medicare Advantage program. (more…)
What Might A Justice Kavanaugh Portend for False Claims Act Jurisprudence?
With Judge Brett Kavanaugh seemingly headed toward confirmation to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court, readers of this blog may be interested in his prior cases addressing the False Claims Act. A judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit for over a decade, Judge Kavanaugh has been described as a conservative textualist and a “stalwart originalist,”[1] more in line with the late Justice Antonin Scalia than swing vote Justice Kennedy, for whom Kavanaugh clerked alongside recently appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch in 1993-1994, and whom he would replace if confirmed. (more…)
AKS Safe Harbor Defeats FCA Claim in Eleventh Circuit
In Carrel v. AIDS Healthcare Foundation, No. 17-13185 (August 7, 2018) the Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the defendant on Anti-Kickback Statute-based FCA claims, holding that incentives to employees for referring patients for its services were covered by the employee safe harbor to the Anti-Kickback Statute, and that these payments in particular served the congressional intent of the Ryan White Act to provide AIDS patients with ease of access to services. The Court also upheld the prior dismissal of all other allegations for a lack of particularity, noting that the only instances that relators alleged with particularity were actually covered “services” under the Ryan White Act and that they would not “infer fraud from instances of lawful conduct.” (more…)
Massachusetts Prohibits Entities From Being Relators
We are increasingly seeing the use of entities as relators, in lieu of individuals. In some instances these relator entities are actual businesses, though frequently they are special purpose entities formed for the sole purpose of pursuing qui tam litigation. There are a number of reasons for this trend, including that the use of an entity may be used to keep secret the names of individual relator-plaintiffs secret even after unsealing, and the belief that by using a corporate entity, individual whistleblowers can be added or replaced in the event of jurisdictional problems. (more…)
Tenth Circuit Holds That Claims For Medical Care That Fail To Meet Industry Standards May Be Deemed Objective False
Earlier this month, in U.S. ex rel. Polukoff v. St. Mark’s Hospital et al., No. 17-4014 (Jul. 9, 2018), the Tenth Circuit reversed a lower court’s dismissal of FCA claims, holding that “[i]t is possible for a medical judgment to be ‘false or fraudulent’” under the FCA. As previously reported here, the relator had alleged that a cardiologist performed and billed Medicare and Medicaid for unnecessary heart surgeries known as PFO closures. The District of Utah, in granting defendants’ motion to dismiss, had concluded that claims associated with those procedures, in which the doctor represented that the procedures were medically necessary, could not be deemed objectively false because “liability may not be premised on subjective interpretations of imprecise statutory language such as ‘medically reasonable and necessary.’”
Court Holds That Negotiated Settlement of A Contractual Dispute Implicated The Anti-Kickback Statute
On June 7, 2018, a federal judge in Chicago denied motions to dismiss filed by defendants Roche Diagnostics Corporation (“Roche”) and Humana, Inc. (“Humana”) in a qui tam lawsuit alleging that the defendants’ settlement for allegedly overpaid contractual rebates constituted unlawful remuneration under Anti-Kickback Statute. (more…)
Acting Associate Attorney General Discusses Trump Administration FCA Enforcement Policy
On June 14, 2018, at the ABA’s National Institute on the Civil False Claims Act and Qui Tam Enforcement, Acting Associate General, Jesse Panuccio, delivered wide-ranging remarks on the False Claims Act. Of particular interest, AAG Panuccio discussed several recent high profile enforcement priorities of the Trump Administration. (more…)
Sixth Circuit’s Split Decision In Prather Highlights Persistent Questions About the Pleading Standard for Materiality After Escobar
Last week, the Sixth Circuit again resurrected the relator’s case in United States ex rel. Marjorie Prather v. Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc. (a discussion of the Sixth Circuit’s previous opinion is available here. In a 2-1 decision, the majority held that the relator’s materiality and scienter allegations sufficed under Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, 136 S. Ct. 1989 (2016). The majority issued the decision over a vigorous dissent by Judge McKeague. The gulf between the majority and the dissent reflects persistent questions about how Escobar applies at the pleading stage (see discussion here). (more…)
Sen. Grassley Fires Warning Shot Over Evolving Interpretations of FCA Materiality Requirement
In a recent floor statement, Senator Chuck Grassley, considered by many to be the chief defender of the FCA in Congress, voiced concerns about how some lower courts are interpreting the FCA’s materiality requirement following the Supreme Court’s Escobar decision. Senator Grassley’s speech is worth noting because he has led successful efforts to legislatively overrule FCA decisions with which he has disagreed in the past. (more…)