Legal Updates
A federal judge in Florida issued a ruling this week holding that the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act (FCA) are unconstitutional. In the lawsuit, a relator named Clarissa Zafirov accused the defendants of violating the False Claims Act under a theory of fraud on the Medicare program. U.S. ex rel. Zafirov v. Florida Medical Associates, LLC, No. 8:19-CV-01236-KKM-SPF (M.D. Fla. Sept. 30, 2024). The federal government declined to intervene in the lawsuit, so Zafirov prosecuted the lawsuit on her own under the qui tam provisions of the FCA, which enable private litigants to pursue FCA actions standing in the shoes of the government and receive a sizeable share of any recovery.
The defendants in the Zafirov case moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing the qui tam provisions of the FCA are unconstitutional. The Florida court agreed, holding the process violates the Appointments Clause of Article II of the U.S. Constitution because a relator – here Zafirov – in a non-intervened FCA case is an “officer of the United States” improperly appointed to that role.
The decision of the Florida court breaks with a number of other courts that have examined constitutional challenges to the FCA’s qui tam provisions, most notably and directly the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. There, in a decision issued en banc in 2001, the Fifth Circuit held to the contrary: namely that the FCA’s qui tam provisions do not violate the Appointments Clause. ...
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