U.S. District Court
Where the defendant in a qui tam action has moved to compel the relator to answer contention interrogatories, that motion should be denied because the interrogatories essentially ask the relator to lay out her entire case against the defendant.
“This is a qui tam action alleging that a pharmaceutical company unlawfully provided free business advisory services to physicians who prescribed its medications, in violation of the AntiKickback Statute, 42 U.S.C. §1320a-7b(b), and caused physicians to submit false claims for reimbursement to Medicare in violation of the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. §3729(a). Relator Julie Long alleges that Janssen Biotech, Inc., a company that manufactures and sells two infusible drugs, Remicade and Simponi ARIA, improperly employed teams of practice advisors, including relator, and hired outside consultants to provide services such as presentations, advice, and customized analyses to doctors to assist them in running profitable infusion businesses, called in-office infusion suites (‘IOIs’). …
“Relator’s answers are, obviously, very general. She objects to answering in any more detail because that would require her to ‘identify every document, communication, act or omission and additional fact regarding’ her claims, a task that would be unduly burdensome at this stage of the litigation. … Further, relator is still awaiting substantial discovery from Janssen and ‘should not have to respond to Janssen’s contention interrogatories...
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