The False Claims Act (FCA) is an American federal law that imposes liability on persons and companies who defraud governmental programs. It is the federal government's primary litigation tool in combating fraud against the government. The law includes a qui tam provision that allows people who are not affiliated with the government, called "relators" under the law, to file actions on behalf of the government. This is informally called "whistleblowing", especially when the relator is employed by the organization accused in the suit. Persons filing actions under the Act stand to receive a portion of any recovered damages.
State Farm Insurance is a group of mutual insurance companies throughout the United States with corporate headquarters in Bloomington, Illinois. Founded in 1922, it is the largest property, casualty, and auto insurance provider in the United States.
Kerri Rigsby and Cori Rigsby (Moran) are the American sisters who worked for eight years at E.A. Renfroe Company and were managers overseeing catastrophe claims adjusters. Kerri and Cori Rigsby are also the whistleblowers who proved to a Mississippi jury that State Farm committed fraud against the U.S. government. The sisters claim State Farm ignored or minimized wind damage to avoid payments relating to Hurricane Katrina and instead attributed damage to flooding so that the National Flood Insurance Program would cover the claims. The jury verdict was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, was then affirmed 8-0 by the United States Supreme Court. The Rigsbys were managers who worked in Gulfport, Mississippi for a subcontractor hired by State Farm to adjust wind and flood claims after Hurricane Katrina. They were the first to uncover a fraudulent scheme by State Farm to improperly categorize wind damage as flood damage. This mischaracterization was very important because State Farm had to pay for wind damage out of its own pocket under State Farm homeowner policies, while flood damage was paid by the federal government under FEMA's flood policies. Over the course of several months, the sisters amassed thousands of pages of documents related to State Farm's activities. The Rigsbys' landmark win was historic because they were the first to prove that an insurance company defrauded the government in FEMA's National Flood Insurance Program despite testimony by FEMA’s Executive Director that, after investigating the allegations, he personally didn’t believe that there was any fraud by State Farm, and he confirmed that FEMA had not asked State Farm to repay any money to the National Flood Insurance Program. However, according to court documents, the sisters took the documents without authorization. Their actions in regard to these documents is the subject of ongoing legal action. Eventually, their story went public when ABC's 20/20 show aired it in August 2006. In 2008, Judge Senter of the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Mississippi found that the sisters and their attorneys had acted unethically when the Scruggs Katrina Group paid the sisters $150,000 per year each to testify, and barred them from testifying or using any of the documents that were taken. Scruggs was later forced to withdraw as their attorney because he improperly paid them for downloading and giving him the State Farm claims files and other documents to use in his lawsuits against State Farm. Scruggs also was later disbarred after pleading guilty to conspiracy to bribe a state circuit court judge in 2008 and separately, to improperly influence another state court circuit judge. He was sentenced to serve five years and seven years, to run concurrently, on the two guilty pleas.
Travelers Casualty & Surety Co. of America v. Pacific Gas & Elec. Co., 549 U.S. 443 (2007), was a United States Supreme Court case about attorney's fees in bankruptcy cases. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion for a unanimous court.
Allison Engine Co. v. United States ex rel. Sanders, 553 U.S. 662 (2008), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States holding that plaintiffs under the False Claims Act must prove that the false claim was made with the specific intent of inducing the government to pay or approve payment of a false or fraudulent claim, rather than merely defrauding a contractor. Congress overruled this decision with the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act of 2009.
Polar Tankers, Inc. v. City of Valdez, 557 U.S. 1 (2009), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the tonnage clause of the United States Constitution.
United States ex rel. Eisenstein v. City of New York, 556 U.S. 928 (2009), is a United States Supreme Court decision holding that where the Government has not intervened or actively participated, private plaintiffs under the False Claims Act must file an appeal within 30 days of the judgment or order being appealed, according to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.
New York ex rel. Cutler v. Dibble, 62 U.S. 366 (1858), was a companion case to the more well-known Fellows v. Blacksmith (1857). At the time Fellows was decided, this case had reached the U.S. Supreme Court but had not yet been argued.
National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, 567 U.S. 519 (2012), is a landmark United States Supreme Court decision in which the Court upheld Congress's power to enact most provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly called Obamacare, and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA), including a requirement for most Americans to pay a penalty for forgoing health insurance by 2014. The Acts represented a major set of changes to the American health care system that had been the subject of highly contentious debate, largely divided on political party lines.
Navarette v. California, 572 U.S. 393 (2014), was a case in which the United States Supreme Court clarified when police officers may make arrests or conduct temporary detentions based on information provided by anonymous tips. In 2008, police in California received a 911 call that a pickup truck was driving recklessly along a rural highway. Officers spotted a truck matching the description provided in the 911 call and followed the truck for five minutes, but did not observe any suspicious behavior. Nevertheless, officers conducted a traffic stop and discovered 30 pounds (14 kg) of marijuana in the truck. At trial, the occupants of the car argued that the traffic stop violated the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, because the tip was unreliable, and officers did not personally observe criminal activity. Writing for a majority of the Court, Justice Clarence Thomas held that the 911 call was reliable, and that officers need not personally observe criminal activity when acting upon information provided by an anonymous 911 call.
Dart Cherokee Basin Operating Co. v. Owens, 574 U.S. 81 (2015), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States clarified procedures for removing a class action lawsuit from state court to federal court. The case involved a dispute about revenue from oil and gas leases in which the defendant filed a motion to remove the case from a state court in Kansas to the United States District Court for the District of Kansas. However, the plaintiff argued that the defendant's motion was defective because the defendant's notice of removal did not include evidence demonstrating that the amount in controversy satisfied the jurisdictional threshold. The United States District Court for the District of Kansas ultimately ruled the case should be returned to the state court, and the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit declined to review the district court's decision.
OBB Personenverkehr AG v. Sachs, 577 U.S. ___ (2015), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, holding that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act barred a California resident from bringing suit against an Austrian railroad in federal district court. The case arose after a California resident suffered traumatic personal injuries while attempting to board a train in Innsbruck, Austria. She then filed a lawsuit against the railroad in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California in which she alleged the railroad was responsible for causing her injuries. Because the railroad was owned by the Austrian government, the railroad claimed that the lawsuit should be barred by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which provides immunity to foreign sovereigns in tort suits filed in the United States. In response, the plaintiff argued that her suit should be permitted under the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act's commercial activity exception because she purchased her rail ticket in the United States.
Kansas v. Carr, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States clarified several procedures for sentencing defendants in capital cases. Specifically, the Court held that judges are not required to affirmatively instruct juries about the burden of proof for establishing mitigating evidence, and that joint trials of capital defendants "are often preferable when the joined defendants’ criminal conduct arises out of a single chain of events". This case included the last majority opinion written by Justice Antonin Scalia before his death in February 2016.
Luis v. United States, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States held that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits the pre-trial restraint of assets needed to retain a defendant's counsel of choice when those assets have not been used in conjunction with criminal activity.
Heffernan v. City of Paterson, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in 2016 concerning the First Amendment rights of public employees. By a 6–2 margin, the Court held that a public employee's constitutional rights might be violated when an employer, believing that the employee was engaging in what would be protected speech, disciplines them because of that belief, even if the employee did not exercise such a constitutional right.
Campbell-Ewald Co. v. Gomez, 577 U.S. ___ (2016), was a case in which the Supreme Court of the United States clarified whether a case becomes moot when a party provides a settlement offer that satisfies a named plaintiff's claims in a class action suit and whether a government contractor is entitled to "derivative sovereign immunity".
Spokeo, Inc. v. Robins, 578 U.S. 330 (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court vacated and remanded a ruling by United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on the basis that the Ninth Circuit had not properly determined whether the plaintiff has suffered an "injury-in-fact" when analyzing whether he had standing to bring his case in federal court. The Court did not discuss whether "the Ninth Circuit’s ultimate conclusion — that Robins adequately alleged an injury in fact — was correct."
Foster v. Chatman, 578 U.S. ___ (2016), was a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that the state law doctrine of res judicata does not preclude a Batson challenge against peremptory challenges if new evidence has emerged. The Court held the state courts' Batson analysis was subject to federal jurisdiction because "[w]hen application of a state law bar 'depends on a federal constitutional ruling, the state-law prong of the court’s holding is not independent of federal law, and our jurisdiction is not precluded,'" under Ake v. Oklahoma.
Kellogg Brown & Root Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Carter, 575 U.S. 650 (2015), was a United States Supreme Court involving KBR and a former KRB contractor, Benjamin Carter. In a unanimous opinion written by Associate Justice Samuel Alito, the Court held that Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act only applies to criminal offenses. The Court also held that qui tam lawsuits filed under the False Claims Act are no longer considered "pending" after they have been dismissed.
Plumhoff v. Rickard, 572 U.S. 765 (2014), is a United States Supreme Court case involving the use of force by police officers during high-speed car chases. After first holding that it had jurisdiction to hear the case, the Court held that the conduct of the police officers involved in the case did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures.
