In an issue of first impression, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution applies in non-intervened False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam lawsuits in Yates v. Pinellas Hematology & Oncology, P.A., 21 F.4th 1288 (11th Cir. 2021). While the Eleventh Circuit ultimately held that the specific facts before it did not violate the Excessive Fines Clause, the ruling provides support for defendants to challenge excessive awards, including required statutory penalties, in declined FCA matters.
In Yates, the defendant was a medical practice with multiple locations, each of which had a clinical laboratory. One of the defendant’s locations did not have the proper certification to perform tests on human specimens but nevertheless submitted for Medicare reimbursement for the tests conducted. The jury found the defendant liable for 214 separate false claims for tests performed at the non-certified location. However, the total single damages awarded was just $755.54. The district court then assessed statutory penalties of $5,500 per false claim, which totaled $1,177,000. In a motion for judgment as a matter of law, or, in the alternative, for remittitur, the defendant argued that the more than $1.1 million in penalties in a case with actual damages of less than $1,000 violated the Excessive Fines Clause of the Eighth Amendment. The district court denied the motion and concluded that the penalties did not...
Al Jazeera Media Network condemns the Israeli occupation army’s baseless accusations, which seek to justify its crimes against Al Jazeera journalists and cameramen in Gaza, most recently the killi...