Under the "what were they thinking" column, a recent U.S. District Court case from the Eastern District of Wisconsin shows that relators and their counsel who bring frivolous or unfounded qui tam claims will be subject to sanctions. USA ex rel Watson v. King-Vassel, et al., 2012 WL 5272486 (E.D. Wis. Oct. 23, 2012).
In the King-Vassel case, the relator, a physician, brought a qui tam against another physician and two companies with whom she was affiliated that provided mental health services alleging that the physician violated the False Claims Act and the Wisconsin False Claims Act when she allegedly "prescrib[ed] medications to a minor patient receiving Medicaid assistance for reasons that are not medically accepted." The state and federal governments decline to intervene, and the relator proceeded with the case, though he was grossly unprepared to do so.
First, the Court observed that the relator got the idea of bringing a qui tam suit as a result of meeting an attorney at a conference and researching how to bring a qui tam claim through a website, "psychrights.org".
Second, the relator found his alleged false claim by placing an ad in the the newspaper seeking minor Medicaid patients who had received certain medications and got his "lead" when a patient responded. The doctor obtained that patient's records using a "borderline-fraudulent release" that failed to mention that the records would be used to bring suit.
Based on these patient records, the relator filed suit against the physician alleging that she had improperly prescribed psychotropic drugs to the minor patient for four years since the drugs at issue were not approved by the FDA for such indications. By doing do, the relator alleged that the physician caused false claims for reimbursement to be submitted to Medicaid. The relator further sued the two companies that the physician was affiliated with on the grounds that they employed the physician. After several months of discovery, the defendants moved for summary judgment.
Third, though it had been apparent from early in the case that the defendant companies did not employ the physician and were not responsible for her alleged conduct on the grounds of respondeat superior, the relator did not move to dismiss them until after the summary judgment was filed. At that point, however, one of the corporate defendants had moved for sanctions on the grounds that it should not have been sued since it was not the employer of the physician defendant. The Court granted sanctions against the relator and his attorney pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1927 and its inherent powers, finding that the attorney waited far too long after she should have known better to withdraw the claim against the corporate defendant. As a result of relator counsel's failure to conduct an "appropriate investigation" after becoming aware of the "serious flaw" in his claim against the corporate defendant, the defendant "was forced to proceed through the entire discovery process and file an extensive summary judgment brief, all to combat a claim that could have been readily dismissed after a minor inquiry."
Fourth, the Court granted summary judgment against the relator who failed to provide any expert testimony or competent evidence to show that the defendant physician's prescribing of certain drugs in fact caused the submission of a false claim to Medicaid or even to show that the prescribed drugs were improper for that patient.
Overall, the Court observed that the relator's "attack here on a single doctor's prescriptions to a single patient does not provide the government with substantial valuable information, as intended by the qui tam statutes. Instead of providing the government with valuable information, [the relator] seemingly sought only to cash in on a fellow doctor's attempts to best address a patient's needs. In return, [the physician] was treated to a lawsuit, the proceeds of which would be split three ways between [the relator, his counsel, and the patient's parent]."
One question that remains is why the government did not dismiss this case or at least dismiss the corporate defendants pursuant to 31 U.S.C. 3730(2)(c)(2). This case was frivolous, and this should have been apparent as to the corporate defendants even at the sealed stage: the corporate defendants were not subject to respondeat superior liability because the physician was an independent contractor and not an employee of defendants.
A. Brian Albritton
October 31, 2012
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