The past 18 months have been a (relatively) wild time for the False Claims Act — on the books since 1863. In FY2018 the Department of Justice obtained more than $2.8 billion in settlements and judgments from cases involving fraud and false claims against the United States government. Add to this staggering statistic the fallout of the Supreme Court’s decision in Universal Health Services Inc....
On May 13, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Cochise Consultancy, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Hunt, No. 18–325, and resolved a circuit split regarding the statute of limitations for an FCA claim brought by a relator between six and ten years after a violation, but less than three years after the government knew or should have known the relevant facts. The Court held...
On Tuesday, March 19, the Supreme Court considered whether to extend the FCA’s alternate 10-year statute of limitations to cases in which the government does not intervene. The case, Cochise Consultancy Inc. v. United States, ex rel. Hunt, involves a whistleblower’s qui tam action alleging that two defense contractors defrauded the government. The case centers on the FCA’s two statutes of limitations. One allows lawsuits...
Rejecting the views of the Fourth and Tenth Circuits, the Eleventh Circuit held the FCA’s three year statute of limitations period in § 3731(b)(2) applies to a relator’s claim even when the United States declines to intervene, and in so doing held it is the knowledge of a government official, not the relator, that triggers the three year limitations period, rejecting the contrary view of...
Late last month, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous, two-part decision that clarified the meaning of the term “offense” as used in the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act (“WSLA”), and the term “pending” as used in the first-to-file doctrine. The Court held that (i) the suspension of the statute of limitations under the WSLA applies only to criminal offenses; and (ii) a qui tam suit...
