SubscribeA district court in the Middle District of Florida issued a new decision that will continue to make it challenging for corporate outsiders to successfully pursue a declined qui tam complaint – at least in the Eleventh Circuit. In U.S. ex rel. Chase v. Lifepath Hospice, Inc., et al., No. 10-cv-1061, 2016 WL 5239863 (M.D. Fla. Sept. 22, 2016), the court dismissed a False Claims Act (FCA) complaint based on the heightened pleading requirement of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b). The complaint, which alleged that defendants billed Medicare for hospice care that was either never provided or provided to ineligible patients, was dismissed primarily because the plaintiff did not adequately allege that false claims were actually submitted to the government. While the court held that the plaintiff had described a “private scheme in detail, to include facts as to some disturbing medical practices, she has not alleged ‘facts as to time, place, and substance of the defendant’s alleged fraud’ —that is, a fraudulent claim.” Id. at *7.
qui tam complaints
The Perils of Parallel Proceedings: To Stay or Not to Stay
One of the more concerning trends for the defense bar in False Claims Act cases is an uptick in parallel criminal and civil proceedings. While the pursuit of parallel proceedings is long-standing DOJ policy, the last few years have seen a “doubling down” by the government on the use of these proceedings — for instance, the 2014 Department of Justice policy requiring an automatic criminal division review of each qui tam complaint and the 2015 Yates Memorandum’s requirement for defendants to identify all culpable individuals to obtain “cooperation” credit in reaching a resolution with the government. From the defense side, parallel proceedings raise important and troublesome issues, including protecting the defendant’s Fifth Amendment rights while mounting a robust defense in the civil case. But, as shown in recent decisions from the Eastern District of Kentucky and Southern District of New York, parallel proceedings may also prove challenging to DOJ when a judge is impatient with the progress of case on its docket or when the relator is not on board with how the government would like the case to proceed.
