United States ex rel. Estate of Cunningham v. Millennium Labs. of Cal., Inc.

Relator brought a federal False Claims Act (FCA) suit against Millennium Laboratories of California (Millennium) and several physicians, alleging that Millennium encouraged physicians to bill the government multiple times for single drug tests and to perform excessive, medically unnecessary original and confirmation tests. Prior to the filing of the complaint, Millennium filed a suit against Relator's employer, Calloway Laboratories (Calloway), in California state court. Millennium attached emails from from Calloway employees to third parties suggesting fraudulent activity in Millennium's billing practices. The district court dismissed Relator's complaint, finding that the prior disclosure constituted a jurisdictional bar to Relator's suit. The First Circuit Court of Appeals held that the court erred in dismissing all of Relator's claims when only some of them had been disclosed by way of being substantially similar to the information contained in Millennium's prior California suit. Remanded for the district court's consideration of whether Relator's remaining FCA claim was sufficiently pled. View "United States ex rel. Estate of Cunningham v. Millennium Labs. of Cal., Inc." on Justia Law