A Walgreens whistleblower who received more than $25 million from a federal fraud settlement must turn to state courts to pursue a share of the pharmacy chain’s separate $4.7 billion opioid settlement with states, a federal judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow of the Northern District of Illinois on September 29 declined to decide pharmacist T.J. Novak’s claims to additional settlement money and dismissed them without prejudice. The ruling leaves Novak free to pursue the claims in the individual states.
Lefkow did not decide whether Novak is entitled to another payment. She found that answering the question would require resolving unsettled issues under the laws of 28 states after the federal claims that brought the case into federal court had already ended.
Novak sued Walgreens in 2018, alleging the company billed Medicare and Medicaid for invalid controlled substance prescriptions. He brought the case under the federal False Claims Act and similar state laws, which permit private whistleblowers to pursue certain fraud claims on behalf of governments and receive a portion of money recovered.
The federal government later joined the case. In April 2025, Walgreens agreed to pay $300 million to resolve allegations that it unlawfully filled millions of prescriptions for opioids and other controlled substances and sought reimbursement for many of them from Medicare and other federal health care programs.
Of the $300 million settlement, $150 million was tied to...
A Walgreens whistleblower who received more than $25 million from a federal fraud settlement must turn to state courts to pursue a share of the pharmacy chain’s separate $4.7 billion opioid settle...