On December 6, 2022, the Supreme Court heard argument in United States ex rel. Polansky v. Executive Health Resources, Inc., a case with potential implications on the cost and longevity of certain False Claims Act (FCA) cases. The case asks whether the government has authority to dismiss an FCA suit after initially declining to proceed with the action, and if so, what standard would apply.
FCA litigation is of great interest to the health care industry. Of the FCA settlements and judgments reported by the Department of Justice last fiscal year, almost 90% related to matters that involved the health care industry, including drug and medical device manufacturers, managed care providers, hospitals, pharmacies, hospice organizations, laboratories and physicians. Empowering the government to exercise dismissal authority provides the government with greater discretion over which FCA cases are pursued in court and gives the government the authority to insert itself between a relator looking for a bounty and a defendant who, in the government’s estimation, should not be pursued for FCA violations.
In our assessment, the Court seems poised to hand a victory to the government and allow it to continue to dismiss cases, even if it declined to intervene initially, but it is unclear what standard the Court will deem applies to such dismissals. Pertinent questions the Justices may be considering are whether the government needs a good reason to dismiss the case, how to evaluate what...
KUANTAN: An elephant handler has expressed disappointment over claims that three Malaysian elephants sent to a Japanese zoo are suffering in their new environment. Mahout Suhaimi Ibrahim, who spen...