{"id":4557,"date":"2016-06-28T01:15:00","date_gmt":"2016-06-28T01:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/?p=4557"},"modified":"2021-11-03T01:15:46","modified_gmt":"2021-11-03T01:15:46","slug":"in-wake-of-escobar-cases-return-to-circuit-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/2016\/06\/28\/in-wake-of-escobar-cases-return-to-circuit-courts\/","title":{"rendered":"In Wake of Escobar, Cases Return to Circuit Courts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued\u00a0summary dispositions<\/a>\u00a0vacating\u00a0the judgments in three cases brought under the False Claims Act (\u201cFCA\u201d). The Court remanded\u00a0the cases back to their respective circuit courts for reconsideration in light of the Court\u2019s decision in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, 579 U. S. ___ (2016). \u00a0As we discussed in our\u00a0advisory<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Escobar<\/em>, the Court\u00a0held\u00a0<\/em>that liability under the False Claims Act can arise under the \u201cimplied false certification\u201d theory. \u00a0Under this theory, prior to\u00a0Escobar,<\/em>\u00a0some circuits held that a claim could be \u201cfalse\u201d if the defendant submitted an accurate claim but violated an underlying \u201ccondition of payment\u201d that arose from a statute, regulation, or contract. In\u00a0Escobar<\/em>, the Court found that FCA liability can be premised on a theory of implied false certification, provided that:\u00a0(1) \u201cthe claim does not merely request payment, but also makes specific representations about the goods or services provided,\u201d and (2) the defendant\u2019s \u201cfailure to disclose noncompliance with material statutory, regulatory, or contractual requirements makes those representations misleading half-truths.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The following cases have been remanded:<\/p>\n\n\n\n While the decision in Escobar<\/em> upheld the theory of implied false certification as a basis for FCA liability, the Court also adopted a heightened materiality standard that may impact the outcome of the above cases on remand. In its decision, the Court described a \u201crigorous\u201d and \u201cdemanding\u201d materiality standard, underscoring that the FCA cannot become an \u201call-purpose antifraud statute\u201d or a \u201cvehicle for punishing garden-variety breaches of contract or regulatory violations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Laurence Freedman, a Member of Mintz Levin\u2019s Health Care Enforcement Defense Group, noted that:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The heightened materiality standard is new, and the remands will be the first occasions for the courts to apply it. Under this standard, it is the government or relator\u2019s burden to demonstrate the violation was actually material and, we would expect, this will require government evidence to prevail on the theory, not just legal arguments.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n We will continue to closely follow the impact of the Escobar<\/em> decision on these and other cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued\u00a0summary dispositions\u00a0vacating\u00a0the judgments in three cases brought under the False Claims Act (\u201cFCA\u201d). The Court remanded\u00a0the cases back to their respective circuit courts for reconsideration in light of the Court\u2019s decision in Universal Health Services, Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, 579 U. S. ___ (2016). \u00a0As we … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_generate-full-width-content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4557"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4560,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4557\/revisions\/4560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4557"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4557"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healthlawpolicymatters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4557"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}