The Qui Tam Blog

Last month the Department of Justice announced that American Grocers, Inc., has agreed to pay $13.2 million to settle a lawsuit that charged the Houston company with changing "use-by" labels on food sold and shipped to U.S. troops in the Middle East during the Iraq war.

The case began in 2005 after Delma Pallare, despite fears of retaliation, blew the whistle on American Grocers, Inc. and its owner Samir Itani, and brought to light the illegal conduct.

Ms. Pallares, represented by the law firm of Berg & Androphy, brought her lawsuit, also known as a qui tam action, under the Civil False Claims Act in the Southern District of Texas. The Houston law firm spent 5 years relentlessly pursuing the case along with Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Zingaro. As a result, the government issued a search warrant for American Grocers’ warehouse, indicted Itani, and intervened in the qui tam action.

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Allergan Inc., has agreed to settle a federal investigation over how it marketed Botox, said the Associated Press (AP). Allergan Inc. allegedly promoted Botox Therapeutic for unapproved medical uses through Medicaid resulting in a combined $600 million in civil and criminal penalties. The settlement becomes official once a federal judge approves it, said the AP.

A whistleblower complaint led to the probe that lasted one year, with the Justice Department looking at Allergan’s marketing of Botox from 2001 through 2008. The five whistleblowers will split $37.8 million of the government’s settlement.

Private citizens who file lawsuits on behalf of the government alleging fraud are eligible for up to 18 percent of whatever is recovered as the result of a qui tam lawsuit. According to a press release, Allergan Inc. agreed to pay state governments and the federal government a combined $225 million civil settlement to compensate Medicaid, Medicare and other federal health programs for reimbursements wrongly paid for Botox Therapeutic. This includes $210 million to the federal government—the rest to a number of states—connected to the probe.

“Off-label marketing violates the civil and criminal laws.” says Joel Androphy, Partner at the prestigous Nationwide law firm of Berg and Androphy. “In addition to misbranding a drug, many pharmaceutical companies pay kickbacks to doctors to induce more prescriptions. As long as companies compete for patients, off-label marketing will continue.”

A lawsuit was filed Monday, July 19th by Wilfrido Willie Mata, the former IT director of the Harrison County sheriff’s office’s claiming he was illegally fired for being a whistle blower.

“You can’t say to somebody, ‘Thanks for reporting. You’re fired,’” Houston whistleblower attorney Joel Androphy said.

According to the lawsuit, instead of looking the other way while an outsider hacked into the county’s computer system, Mata went to the FBI. In October, Mata disclosed his cooperation to the sheriff’s office. In February, the suit says his performance review was rated average. In May, he was fired.

“That timing is too close to not raise a lot of suspicion that he was fired because of complaining,” Androphy said. The lawsuit alleges the sheriff’s office violated the Whistleblower Act.

Watch the complete story as reported on WKTRK Eyewitness News.

$176,000 was just paid to qui tam whistleblower who filed a lawsuit against Cochlear Americas on behalf of the federal government. Whistleblower Brenda March filed the lawsuit as the company allegedly paid illegal remuneration to health care providers as an incentive to sell Cochlear devices.

The total settlement with Cochlear Americas was worth $880,000. The defendant company is a subsidiary of the Australian company Cochlear Limited.

March originally filed using provision in the Anti-Kickback Act and False Claims Act, saying that the company was clearly paying kickbacks to physicians who sold Cochlear devices to Medicare and Medicaid patients.

ABC News Houston keeps qui tam attorney Joel Androphy on call when they need a legal expert. Here, Androphy shares his thoughts of the context of a local courtroom situation and how it may affect the jury’s decision. Read about the case, the trial, and what Androphy has to say in the article below.

Suspect’s Brother Kicked Out of Court During Testimony of Accused Cop Killer’s Trial
The trial of a man accused of killing a Houston police officer entered its second day of testimony, but Tuesday the biggest drama came when one of the suspect’s family members was asked to leave the courtroom. Read More

New financial reform legislation before Congress would allow an increase in multi-million dollar awards to whistleblowers. Ideally, this would create an environment where companies are pressured to report misconduct earlier and where whistleblowers will see the reward in bringing fraudulent activities to light.

Under the new law, the Securities and Exchange Commission would be required to award whistleblowers 30 percent of the total retribution or settlement gained from prosecution of the fraudulent company.

The False Claims Act had similar goals, although without the minimum reward requirement that would offer whisteblowers and lucrative and tangible incentive to report their company’s wrongdoings. Many experts agree that this type of incentive would go a long way toward convincing wary potential-whistleblowers who are afraid of losing their jobs or facing similar retaliation from the company they report. With significant financial incentive, blowing the whistle on misconduct gets a little easier.

Learn how the qui tam attorneys at Berg & Androphy have recovered hundreds of millions for the government and whistleblowers.

In an attempt to speed up civil fraud investigations in the U.S., Attorney General Eric Holder expanded the power of the False Claims Act by signing an order allowing U.S. Attorneys to issue civil investigative demands under the Act.

Civil investigative demand allows for a subpoena of documents, depositions and interrogatories. Currently the Justice Department can issue these investigative demands before it files a complaint or before signing on to qui tam litigation. This makes the information accessible before the potential defendant can conduct its own discovery.

Until this year, the Attorney General could exclusively approve civil investigative demands. Because of this limitation, they were not common. Last spring, however, an anti-fraud bill made its way through congress and subsequently established the practice of allowing the Attorney General to delegate the power to Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Division. In a further expansion, Attorney General Holder also allowed Assistant Attorney General Tony West to redelegatee such powers to U.S. Attorneys, with notice and reporting requirement.

Laidlaw Transit, Inc., a company that provides busing services to California school districts, is being challenged by the First District Court of appeals on the basis of a Qui Tam case brought by plaintiffs claiming that the company falsified safety records and failed to meet state safety and environmental standards.

Because Laidlaw accepted payment while allegedly breaching the contract held with the city, they are liable under the False Claims Act. The case had previously been dismissed but has been revived by the Court of Appeals.

The case was brought to court by a private individual with knowledge about Laidlaw’s supposed misconduct. If Laidlaw is charged with damages in this case, the whistle blower will be awarded some of the money under the False Claims Act.

A qui tam case filed in the Texas Northern District Court by a patent watchdog group (The Patent Compliance Group, the PCG) against Activision Video Game Products, the firm that owns the Guitar Hero line of video games and video game products, accuses the company of patent law infringement.

The lawsuit accuses the Activision brand of improperly labeling its products with the patent and patent-pending notation used to protect brand names from copyright infringement. The case involves provision 35 U.S.C. 292(a) which establishes that, “”… whoever marks upon, or affixes to, or uses in advertising in connection with any article the words “patent applied for,” “patent pending,” or any word importing that an application for patent has been made, when no application for patent has been made, or if made, is not pending, for the purpose of deceiving the public – Shall be fined not more than US$500 for every such offense (in this case per item sold).”

Even though Activision does have some patents currently pending, PCG claims that the patents the company has filed do not cover the scope the packaging notation has claimed.

A Qui Tam suit has been brought against J-M Manufacturing Co and Formosa Plastics Corp, the manufacturing company’s previous parent company. Four states, twenty-one water districts and twenty-two cities in California have brought the lawsuit following reports that J-M Manufacturing had been supplying sub-standard PVC pipe.

The suit accuses J-M of taking several “cost-cutting” measures, including producing inferior quality PVC pipe, filling supervisor positions with inexperienced workers and providing independent quality-testers with a higher quality sample of product than what was actually being provided to customers.

For cities using these PVC pipes for water management, inferior quality product means a bad investment in public infrastructure. John Hendrix, who worked as an engineer in the J-M’s product assurance department, blew the whistle on the manufacturing company’s product quality issues and was reportedly fired by the company a week later.

The suit states that Hendrix’s employment was terminated after he wrote a memo to upper management informing them that the tensile strength of the PVC pipe being supplied was below the certification agency standards provided by Underwriters Laboratories, Inc.