An appeals court ruling that False Claims Act whistleblowers don’t violate Article II of the US Constitution is a major victory for the anti-fraud statute, with attorneys saying it lowers the near-term odds that the US Supreme Court will take on and damage the law used to combat fraud in federal government programs.
The US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said Tuesday that a whistleblower’s suit alleging Medicare fraud can move forward because she isn’t a US officer, and her suit therefore doesn’t violate the appointments clause in Article II. The appeals panel reversed an outlier 2024 federal district court opinion and agreed with other circuits in finding that FCA whistleblower suits are constitutional.
Whistleblowers will celebrate this opinion and the fact that it didn’t create a circuit split. So will the Justice Department, which recovered $6.8 billion from FCA suits in fiscal year 2025—$5.3 billion of which came from whistleblower suits.
“We are pleased that the Eleventh Circuit has reached the same conclusion as every other circuit, holding unequivocally that the False Claims Act does not violate the Appointments Clause,” Jennifer M. Verkamp of Morgan Verkamp LLC told Bloomberg Law. Verkamp represents the plaintiff in the case, whistleblower Clarissa Zafirov, in her suit against Florida Medical Associates, doing business as VIPcare.
This decision is significant for cases like Zafirov’s where the government has declined to intervene, Verkamp said, because...
Nana, a former member of the group After School, announced the progress of the investigation into the home invasion robbery and resented that the perpetrator continued to make false claims without ...