The Department of Justice issued two memoranda at the start of 2018 that may have important effects on health care fraud investigations and prosecutions under the False Claims Act.
The first, Factors for Evaluating Dismissal Pursuant to 31 U.S.C. 3730(c)(2)(A), was issued by Michael Granston, Director of the DOJ Commercial Litigation Branch, Fraud Section,
It’s flu season again. Your PCP at WPMG is thinking of you!
So began the health care provider’s text message that prompted this month’s Second Circuit decision applying the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to a flu shot reminder, Latner v. Mount Sinai Health System, Inc.
Plaintiff had gone to defendant West Park Medical Group
Last week, in United States v. Scully, the Second Circuit vacated the conviction of a distributor of pharmaceutical products on misbranding charges due to evidentiary issues surrounding his advice-of-counsel defense at trial.
The Rise and Fall of Pharmalogical
William Scully and Rodi Lameh founded Pharmalogical, Inc,, planning to acquire pharmaceutical products from manufacturers and
False Claims Act whistleblowers expose themselves to significant risks by coming forward and asserting claims of fraud against the government. Often, the whistleblowers, called relators under the False Claims Act, would prefer to maintain their anonymity for personal or professional reasons, but their options to do so are limited.
A False Claims Act case is
Trypanophobia—the fear of needles—played a significant role in a case brought against Rite Aid Pharmacy under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In Stevens v. Rite Aid Corp., the Second Circuit overturned a jury verdict awarding substantial damages to a Rite Aid pharmacist who was terminated after he said he could not perform immunization
The Second Circuit recently agreed to accept an interlocutory appeal to decide the question whether a violation of the False Claims Act’s “first-to-file” rule compels dismissal of the complaint or whether it can be cured by the filing of an amended pleading.
In United States ex rel. Wood v. Allergan, Inc., Relator John Wood
Last week, the Second Circuit held that a False Claims Act relator does not have to plead details of specific alleged false billings or invoices to the government, as long as he can allege facts leading to a strong inference that specific claims were submitted and that information about them are peculiarly within the defendant’s
Health care fraud prosecutions in the Second Circuit and throughout the country have typically sought forfeiture money judgments against all defendants for the proceeds of the fraud obtained by all members of a health care fraud conspiracy. The Supreme Court recently curtailed these efforts in Honeycutt v. United States. In Honeycutt, the Court
The Supreme Court held last week that in a federal health care fraud prosecution, the Sixth Amendment prevents the government from obtaining a pretrial freeze of assets that were untainted by the alleged crime and that defendant sought to use to pay her lawyer.
In Luis v. United States, the government alleged that the
Earlier this month, EDNY Judge Joanna Seybert examined the elements of Aggravated Identify Theft in an interesting context: a motion to unseal grand jury minutes in a health care fraud prosecution, United States v. Cwibeker.
Defendants were charged with billing Medicare for fictitious or non-compensable treatments of residents of assisted living facilities. Defendants would