On February 7, 2022, the Northern District of New York dismissed a qui tam complaint against a New York nursing facility operator, Kingston NH Operations LLC, which operates Ten Broeck Center (TBC). The relator, a former employee, claimed that the facility inadequately cared for Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries during the COVID-19 pandemic. Among other things, the relator alleged that the facility did not comply with state-issued mask mandates and social distancing guidelines, downplayed the severity of the spread of COVID-19 within the facility, and improperly terminated her employment in retaliation for calling attention to the improper conduct. The government declined to intervene. The district court’s decision implicates a longstanding circuit split over how Rule 9(b) applies to False Claims Act actions and analyzes the question of whether Rule 9(b) requires a relator to identify specific examples of false claims.
In moving to dismiss, the facility argued that the relator’s complaint failed to satisfy Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b)’s heightened pleading standard because to the relator did not identify “who submitted the false claims, the dates of service, dates of [the claims’] submission, the patient for whom the claim was allegedly submitted, how the claim was false, to whom the statement was made, when the statement was made, or any other [relevant] facts . . ..” In opposition to the retaliation claims, the facility also argued that the relator failed to allege facts...
Pakistani actress and model Ayesha Omar has strongly denied a controversial statement falsely attributed to her on social media. In recent days, a statement circulated online claiming that the act...