I recently came across another interesting example of a court refusing to permit the False Claims Act ("FCA") to be used as remedy for a technical regulatory violation that was unrelated to a claim for payment submitted to the government: US ex rel. Rostholder et al. v. Omnicare International, et al., (4th Cir., February 21, 2014).
In Omnicare, the 4th Circuit sustained the lower court's dismissal of False Claims Act claims due to the complaint's failure "to allege that the defendants made a false statement or acted with the necessary scienter." The Relator had alleged that the defendant, a drug manufacturer, violated a series of Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") safety regulations relating to the packaging of penicillin together with other drugs, the result of which caused the drugs to be "adulterated." Since federal law prohibits adulterated drugs from being sold in interstate commerce, Relator alleged that such mispacked drugs were no longer eligible for reimbursement by Medicare or Medicaid. For a drug to be eligible for reimbursement by Medicare and Medicaid, the FDA must have "approved [it]for safety and effectiveness" when it was submitted as a new drug.
Essentially, the Court found that the Relator did not state an FCA claim because complying with FDA safety regulations for a previously approved drug is not an express condition of reimbursement by Medicare or Medicaid. That is, defendants did not have to expressly certify compliance with the FDA in order to obtain payment for such a mispacked drug under Medicare and Medicaid. As a result, Relator was unable to identify "any false statement or other fraudulent misrepresentation that Omnicare made to the government," i.e., there was no "false claim" for payment under the FCA. The Court explained: "FCA liability based on a false certification to the government will lie only if compliance with the statues or regulations was a prerequisite to gaining a benefit, and the defendant affirmatively certified such compliance."
The Court observed that the FCA was not meant as a mechanism to promote "regulatory compliance," especially when in the case of the FDA, the government had established a "very remedial process" to enforce FDA regulations. The FDA's "significant remedial powers . . . buttresses our conclusion that Congress did not intend that the FCA be used as regulatory-compliance mechanism in the absence of a false statement or fraudulent conducted directed at the government."
Interestingly, the Court went further and found not only had the Relator not alleged a false statement or fraudulent conduct, but it also found as a matter of law that the Relator had not "plausibly" alleged that Omnicare knowingly submitted a false claim to the government. Since the Medicare and Medicaid statutes did not expressly prohibit reimbursement for "drugs packed in violation" of federal law, the Court essentially found that Omnicare could not have known that it was submitting a false claim.
While a welcome result, the Court made an easy call here. There is simply no connection between a claim for reimbursement under Medicare Part D and these technical FDA violations.
A. Brian Albritton
March 3, 2014
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