Shayne Stevenson on 9th Circuit's False Claims Act Whistleblower Ruling
This was a mistaken law that was on the books for a long time and served as a huge deterrent. The Wang decision has led to potentially millions of dollars in government fraud going unreported.
— Shayne Stevenson
"The Ninth Circuit’s recent holding in False Claims Act litigation against Kinetic Concepts Inc. that whistleblowers no longer need to have a hand in the public disclosure of their claims removes a decades-long deterrent for qui tam relators and opens the door for more suits alleging fraud on the government, attorneys say. In an en banc decision on Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit repealed its own 1992 precedent set in Wang ex rel. U.S. v. FMC Corp., which the district court had relied on in dismissing the cases brought by whistleblowers Steven Hartpence and Geraldine Godecke, former KCI employees. The lower court ruled that the whistleblowers’ claims were based on publicly disclosed information and that they were not the original sources." Full article »
