SCOTUS Won't Hear Appeal of DC Circuit False Claims Act Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to hear a lower court’s dismissal of False Claims Act (FCA) actions brought by lawyers Mark O’Connor and Sara Leibman against UScellular, a former regional wireless carrier. O’Connor and Leibman sought review of a decision last February by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
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The FCA imposes civil liability for various types of fraud against the government, and a private individual, called a relator, may bring a “qui tam” action alleging an FCA violation on behalf of the U.S. O’Connor and Leibman have filed various such FCA claims against UScellular (see 2509260005). The D.C. Circuit’s decision “eviscerates the statutory scheme Congress carefully calibrated in 2010 to encourage more whistleblowers to come forward,” the lawyers said in seeking SCOTUS review in docket 25-271.
O’Connor and Leibman argued that the burden-shifting framework devised by the D.C. Circuit was contradicted by SCOTUS’ unanimous decision last year in Cunningham v. Cornell University, which involved claims made under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. “For reasons that equally apply to the structure and text of the FCA, this Court held that ERISA plaintiffs need not anticipate and negate affirmative defenses at the pleading stage,” they said.