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Court Decision

This archive displays posts tagged as relevant to court decisions involving whistleblower laws. You may also be interested in our pages:

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Jury Finds Eli Lilly Cheated Medicaid in Case Highlighting Legal Battle Over False Claims Act Intent Standard

Posted  09/6/22
By Marlene Koury, Leah Judge
Courtroom and Jury Stand
Constantine Cannon whistleblower lawyers Marlene Koury and Leah Judge were published in Law360 on the verdict in favor of a whistleblower against Eli Lilly, and what that case says about legal developments in the interpretation of the False Claims Act since the Seventh Circuit’s SuperValu decision. This post is an adaptation of that article.
In August, a Chicago jury in the U.S. District Court for the Northern...

A recent case could undermine the rules that have been protecting taxpayer money from fraud since the time of Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln Statute
Constantine Cannon whistleblower lawyers Eric Havian, Mike Ronickher, and Ari Yampolsky were published in Fortune.com on the Supreme Court's consideration of the SuperValu decision.
We’re whistleblower lawyers who spend our careers speaking in legalese. But every once in a while, a case comes along that is so alarming, yet so couched in jargon, that an issue of great importance can easily escape notice. When that...

Court says that fraudsters who violate rules they later claim are unclear may not violate the False Claims Act

Posted  08/19/21
Red and yellow pills scattered on hundred dollar bills
Last week, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the federal appellate court for Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin decided U.S. ex rel. Yarberry v. Supervalu, an important decision that may lead more unscrupulous government contractors to help themselves to public funds to which they are not entitled.  Unless the Supreme Court or Congress steps in to correct the Seventh Circuit’s errors, the government may have...

Fifth Circuit Affirms Government Dismissal Of Cases Brought By Corporate Whistleblower

Posted  07/16/21
By Leah Judge
gavel on bench
Last week, a three-judge panel of the Court of the Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with the government in its bid to dismiss a whistleblower case brought by a limited liability company against pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Bayer.  The case offers another example of the government flexing its dismissal power in the wake of the Granston Memo, a 2018 Department of Justice directive to winnow False Claims Act...

Court of Appeals Upholds SEC Denial of Whistleblower Award

Posted  02/18/21
Bicycle messenger blurred by speeding on street
A whistleblower who was denied an award by the SEC lost his appeal to the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, resulting in a rare court opinion addressing the SEC Whistleblower Reward Program. The court agreed with the SEC that the whistleblower, who had reported information regarding Bank of America and argued that he had worked extensively with DOJ, had not shown that he was entitled to a whistleblower award from...

Eleventh Circuit Revives VA Mortgage Fraud Whistleblower Case

Posted  01/22/21
By Leah Judge
mortgage papers with gavel, cash and magnifying glass
Last week, a three-judge panel on the Eleventh Circuit breathed new life into a fifteen-year-old mortgage fraud lawsuit brought by two whistleblowers under the False Claims Act.  The opinion, United States ex rel. Bibby v. Mortgage Investors Corporation adds another voice to the chorus of circuit courts applying the Supreme Court’s landmark 2016 ruling on the FCA’s “materiality” standard, Universal Health...

“Objective Falsity” Is Not Required Under the False Claims Act: A Legally False Opinion May Suffice

Posted  03/6/20
Gavel close-up
In a significant win for whistleblowers, a federal appellate court held this week that, in order to determine liability under the False Claims Act, a whistleblower need not prove that a claim is “objectively” false.  Instead, the Court held that, consistent with common law, a claim can be false under the FCA if based not on objectively verifiable facts, but on non-compliance with statutory or regulatory...

First Circuit Revives Whistleblower Suit Against PharMerica, Rejecting Public Disclosure Challenge

Posted  02/28/20
boston-first-circuit-building
Rejecting an argument that only a fraudster could love, the First Circuit Court of Appeals revived a whistleblower’s lawsuit and rightly recognized that whistleblowers can have “direct” knowledge of fraud even if they did not themselves participate in the fraud. In United States ex rel. Banigan & Templin, et al. v. PharMerica, Inc., the First Circuit interpreted the so-called “original source” provision of...

Treble Damages Awarded in Medicare Whistleblower Case

Posted  02/21/20
specimen jar
The Fifth Circuit upheld a 2018 lower court decision this week, finding defendant BestCare Laboratory Services, LLC and its owner Karim Maghareh liable for treble damages—to the tune of just over $30 million—under the False Claims Act. BestCare provided clinical testing services for nursing home residents, many of whom were Medicare beneficiaries. Rather than billing for a technician’s travel to and from the...

Second Circuit Upholds SEC Denial of Whistleblower Rewards to Three Claimants in Deutsche Bank Settlement

Posted  11/13/19
Disorganized paper records stacked on table
In May 2015, Deutsche Bank agreed to pay a $55 million penalty to the SEC to settle charges that its financial statements misreported the value of a portfolio of derivatives, failing to take account of the material risk of potential losses associated with the derivatives.  Subsequently, in November 2017, the SEC announced that it had awarded whistleblower rewards totaling $16 million to two whistleblowers “whose...
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