On February 23, the whistleblower attorneys of Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto (KKC), on behalf of the National Whistleblower Center (NWC), filed an amicus curiae brief in the Supreme Court case U.S. ex rel. Schutte v. SuperValu Inc. The case has tremendous implications for the ability of whistleblowers and the government to hold fraudsters accountable under the False Claims Act (FCA).
The brief argues that in passing the FCA, Congress clearly intended for fraudsters to be held liable based on a subjective intent to commit fraud, regardless of contractual ambiguity.
In Supervalu, and the case it was consolidated with U.S. ex rel. Proctor v. Safeway, the Supreme Court will rule on whether or not a company or individual “knowingly” submitted false claims if it acted based upon a reasonable, though incorrect, interpretation of the law.
In both cases, the Seventh Circuit ruled that pharmacy operators did not violate the FCA despite overbilling the government for prescription drugs because they operated under an “objectively reasonable” interpretation of the law. The Seventh Circuit ruled that this “objectively reasonable” interpretation of the law means the company did not commit fraud even if the company did not actually believe in the interpretation and actively sought to defraud the government.
The brief filed by KKC and NWC argues that these rulings go against the clear Congressional intent of the FCA. KKC conducted original research in the National Archives and found the ...
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