Where a plaintiff has alleged retaliation under the False Claims Act, that count must be dismissed because the plaintiff was not terminated as a result of any protected conduct but for violating the defendant employer’s dishonesty policy.
“The plaintiff Dr. Chi-Sang Poon has brought the following claims against the defendant Massachusetts Institute of Technology (‘MIT’): discrimination and retaliation under the False Claims Act (‘FCA’), retaliation under the National Defense Authorization Act (‘NDAA’), constitutional violations under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act (‘MCRA’), and breach of contract. MIT has moved to dismiss each of the claims. For the reasons set forth herein, the Court grants MIT’s motion to dismiss the complaint.
“Dr. Poon worked as a research scientist at MIT for nearly thirty years. MIT fired him in the wake of three overlapping incidents that occurred in the years 2016 to 2018, each of which involved Dr. Poon’s escalating various issues directly to MIT leadership, MIT’s partners, and the federal government. In the first of those three incidents, Dr. Poon refused to approve an invoice from Massachusetts General Hospital (‘MGH’), a subgrantee of MIT, because he believed it was inflated. In the other two, Dr. Poon disputed the National Science Foundation’s (‘NSF’) and National Institutes of Health’s (‘NIH’) interpretations of their own grant solicitation guidelines. …
“Dr. Poon, however, was fired for violating MIT’s Dishonesty...
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