The Ensign Group has agreed to pay almost $48 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that state and federal prosecutors abandoned four years ago — and for which plaintiffs attorneys are trying to take new credit.
Although the settlement agreement was finalized in December 2024, it was not widely publicized until Tuesday. That’s when attorneys from the Whisteblower Law Collaborative and other plaintiffs attorneys announced the agreement in a nationwide press release. The announcement highlighted the agreement while promoting the firms’ services for potential whistleblower clients.
The case at issue was initially filed in the US District Court for California’s Central District in 2015. After a judge there threatened to dismiss the initial complaint, attorneys for plaintiff and former Ensign contracts manager Sharon Ginger amended their filing. The judge eventually dismissed the case in part but let some claims proceed.
The civil allegations primarily focused on Ensign’s payments to medical directors, which the whistleblower described in its media statement Tuesday as “knowingly paid kickbacks” for referrals of patients to skilled nursing facilities in violation of the False Claims Act, federal and state anti-kickback statutes, and the federal Stark self-referral law.
Ensign CEO Barry Port told McKnight’s Wednesday afternoon that his company had sent the law firms behind the press release a cease-and-desist letter citing “inaccuracies” in the media statement.
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The Ensign Group has agreed to pay almost $48 million to resolve False Claims Act allegations that state and federal prosecutors abandoned four years ago — and for which plaintiffs attorneys are t...