False Claims Act Insights - If Everything Matters, Nothing Does: Parsing Materiality in FCA Disputes
Podcast: Non-binding Guidance: SEC Disclosure Issues for Life Sciences Companies
Life Sciences Quarterly (Q3 2019): SEC Enforcement and Class Actions Regarding FDA Communications
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed judgment against relators in a case alleging that a group of dairy farmers growing corn violated the False Claims Act by filing false insurance claims paid by the Federal...more
On July 25, 2023, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL.) introduced amendments to the False Claims Act (FCA), a law that protects the federal government from fraud, saving taxpayers billions. The FCA...more
The Supreme Court issued a number of headline-grabbing decisions this term on topics like religious accommodation, LGBTQ protections, and consideration of race in college admissions. These decisions are wide-reaching and...more
On June 1, 2023, the Supreme Court decided a pair of closely watched False Claims Act (FCA) cases, U.S. ex rel. Schutte v. SuperValu Inc., No. 21-1326, and U.S. ex rel. Proctor v. Safeway, Inc., No. 22-111....more
On December 2, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia granted a motion to dismiss a False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit brought by the United States and the Commonwealth of Virginia, which alleged that a...more
According to a recent decision in United States ex rel. Scollick v. Narula, Case No. 14-cv-1339 (D.D.C. Nov. 6, 2020), the fraudulent inducement theory of False Claims Act (“FCA”) liability does not require plaintiffs to...more
On October 5, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a case questioning the materiality standard for Medicare fraud cases under the False Claims Act (FCA). The case involved allegations that Lawrence Memorial...more
The Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari last Monday in U.S. ex rel. Prather v. Brookdale Senior Living Communities, Inc., No. 17-5826 (6th Cir. June 11, 2018), again declining to revisit or clarify the False Claims...more
The pace of False Claims Act (FCA) litigation remained furious over the past year. Companies (and individuals) in all sectors of the economy continue to face the ever-present threat of FCA enforcement whenever they do...more
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) filed an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court on November 30, 2018 in a closely watched False Claims Act (FCA) lawsuit, after the Supreme Court asked for the Solicitor...more
The Situation: Courts have disagreed over whether Universal Health Services, Inc. v. Escobar, 136 S. Ct. 1989 (2016), announced a mandatory test for implied certification liability under the False Claims Act ("FCA"). The...more
Unless and until the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, “en banc, interprets Escobar differently,” a Ninth Circuit panel, relying on past case law, has ruled that relators seeking to establish False Claims Act...more
Following our inaugural installment of the Health Care Enforcement Quarterly Roundup, we are pleased to be back this quarter with another overview of key enforcement trends in the health care industry. In this issue, we...more
This quarter’s issue includes summaries and associated court opinions of selected cases principally decided between February 2018 and May 2018. ...more
Summer is almost here. For some, that means planning vacations to the beach, hitting the gym to shed that winter weight, or perhaps hitting the golf course—but for us at the Sheppard Mullin Healthcare Law Blog and the False...more
In an order issued on April 16, 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court invited the Solicitor General to file a brief “expressing the views of the United States” concerning the 2017 decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth...more
A Florida federal court threw out a $350 million jury verdict against a nursing facility, citing the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar. The court explained...more
The Situation: The False Claims Act imposes civil liability on any person or entity that "knowingly presents, or causes to be presented" to the U.S. government "a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval." The...more
The ruling in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. Escobar "rejects a system of government traps, zaps, and zingers that permits the government to retain the benefit of a substantially conforming good or service but to recover...more
If the government does not take action and continues to pay for Medicare/Medicaid claims after it learns of non-compliance related to the claims, is the non-compliance material to the government’s decision to pay? This is a...more
The United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida vacated a large jury verdict in a False Claims Act case against the owners and operators of nursing homes because the evidence did not satisfy the...more
The False Claims Act (FCA), initially enacted in 1863 during the Civil War, was sponsored by the Lincoln administration to curtail the rampant fraud and excessive profiteering being perpetuated by government contractors, who,...more
The Situation: A decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reinforces the growing body of case law regarding the strict materiality requirements of the False Claims Act. The Result: Coyne v. Amgen is...more
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a five-part series on how U.S. district courts and courts of appeal have applied the materiality standard set forth in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, 136...more
There is a renewed focus on the government’s activities for purposes of the False Claims Act (FCA) materiality analysis and as demonstrated by a number of recently issued decisions, the roster of relevant government actors is...more