How will the Supreme Court's recent case impact Biden's green agenda?
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The Supreme Court on Thursday said that a lawsuit brought by whistleblowers, who claimed SuperValu Inc. and Safeway Inc. overcharged the Medicare and Medicaid for prescription drugs, can move forward.
In a unanimous decision, the nine justices threw out a lower court's ruling that said the retail pharmacies could not be held liable for fraud under the False Claims Act (FCA).
That statute says that any person who knowingly submits false claims to the government is liable for three times the government's damages, plus penalties.
The court had to answer wether SuperValu and Safeway had the "scienter" – or awareness – required by the FCA, "if they correctly understood that standard and thought that their claims were inaccurate."
"We hold that the answer is yes: What matters for an FCA case is whether the defendant knew the claim was false. Thus, if respondents correctly interpreted the relevant phrase and believed their claims were false, then they could have known their claims were false," the opinion stated.
Justice Clarence Thomas, who authored the majority opinion, sent the matter back to the Seventh Circuit to proceed consistent with the high court's opinion.
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