whistleblowers – Overlawyered

Liability roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 18 Feb 2020 11:02:31 +0000

“Syracuse woman sued for not letting adopted cat sleep in bed with her” [CNYCentral]
St. Louis talc cases: “Thus, in order to vindicate their Due Process rights regarding personal jurisdiction…, the defendants had to litigate with over $5 billion in potential liability hanging over their heads. Not too many defendants [can] do that.” [Jim Beck on Johnson & Johnson win]
Allegation: “instructed Thomas to get behind the wheel of Thomas’ Avalanche to make it appear that Thomas was driving the vehicle at the time of the staged accident.” [WDSU on indictment of five in New Orleans car-crash scheme] “Those cameras right there saved between $150,000 and $200,000 just by capturing the fraud and us not having to go and defend it.” [Mike Perlstein, WWL] “Don’t listen to the lawyers, take tough action to curb [Louisiana] car insurance costs” [R.J. Lehmann and Marc Hyden, The Advocate; earlier here, here, and here]
Washington Legal Foundation monograph on judicial oversight of expert testimony [Evan Tager et al.; related webinar] “Stupid expert tricks,” pharmaceutical edition [Jim Beck]
“Art Imitates Life: ‘Billions’ Describes Six-Figure, Part-Time Jobs On Asbestos Trusts” [Daniel Fisher, Legal Newsline, 2018]
“DOJ eyes requirement that False Claims Act whistleblowers disclose litigation funding” [Alison Frankel, Reuters, remarks by Deputy Associate Attorney General Stephen Cox]

Tags: animals, asbestos, claims fraud, expert witnesses, problem jurisdictions, qui tam, whistleblowers

Liability roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 7 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 09:58:17 +0000

“We got nailed once because someone barehanded a bag of lettuce without a glove.” Kitchen-eye tales of NYC’s restaurant inspection regime [Saxon Baird, NY Eater]
Positive reviews for new HUD regs on housing discrimination, affordability, and supply [National Review: Roger Clegg; Salim Furth]
Sony isn’t making its robot companion dog available in Illinois because its facial recognition features fall under the state’s onerous Biometric Information Privacy Act; an earlier in-state casualty was Google’s “which museum portrait is your selfie like?” service [Megan Wollerton, CNet, earlier here and here] Is there any hope of slowing down the rush of class action suits filed under the law? [Chris Burt, Biometric Update]
Victory on a-peel: “3rd Circuit rules maker of banana costume is entitled to ‘fruits of its intellectual labor'” [ABA Journal, earlier here, etc.]
D.C. Circuit “Rips ‘Legal Artifice’ in Kasowitz Firm’s Megabillions Whistleblower Case” [Dan Packel, The American Lawyer; Cory Andrews, WLF]
Congress passes a law framed as pro-veteran, doesn’t take the time to spell out quite how it works, years later we meet the (presumably unintended) losers in the form of nonprofits that employ blind and deaf workers [Julie Havlak, Carolina Journal, quotes me]

Tags: disabled rights, housing discrimination, Illinois, NYC, privacy, restaurants, whistleblowers

August 7 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

DoJ snubs whistleblower who shorted stocks of target firms

Walter Olson — Thu, 14 Mar 2019 10:08:59 +0000

“The Trump Justice Department, following a tougher policy toward dubious False Claims Act lawsuits by private citizens, has moved to dismiss a pair of lawsuits by a former hedge-fund manager who shorted stock in pharmaceutical companies he accused of a wide-ranging price-fixing conspiracy.” [Daniel Fisher, Legal NewsLine/Forbes]

Tags: pharmaceuticals, qui tam, whistleblowers

DoJ snubs whistleblower who shorted stocks of target firms is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Feds: we’ve had it with qui tam gamesmanship

Walter Olson — Thu, 24 Jan 2019 10:59:53 +0000

“The U.S. Department of Justice is asking federal judges around the country to dismiss lawsuits it says are brought by shell companies that misrepresent their true purposes – filing meritless litigation against health care companies…. The DOJ says these plaintiffs were created for the sole purpose of filing suit under the federal False Claims Act and is complaining that it spent hundreds of hours investigating kickback allegations only to find no merit to them…. Among the law firms representing the plaintiffs in the cases is the firm of prominent personal injury lawyer Mark Lanier of Texas.” [P. David Yates, Legal NewsLine/Forbes]

“Significant to DOJ’s analysis was the fact that the qui tam relators used ‘false pretenses’ to obtain information from witnesses. According to the government, the actions all were filed by a ‘professional relator’ entity that sought to develop contacts and inside information under the guise of conducting a research study of the pharmaceutical industry, and offering to pay individuals for information provided in a purported ‘qualitative research study,’ even though the information was ‘actually being collected for use in qui tam complaints filed by [the professional relator] through its pseudonymous limited liability companies.’…it would be awkward for DOJ to sit idly by and allow qui tam cases to proceed, in the government’s name—which is how the qui tam system works—when those cases are purportedly premised on a scheme one district court already described as involving ethical violations and ‘an elaborate series of falsehoods, misrepresentation, and deceptive conduct.'” [Joe Metro and Andy Bernasconi, Drug and Device Law]

And yet more: “Prominent qui tam lawyers are now questioning the nomination of William Barr as attorney general, citing comments he made nearly 30 years ago questioning the constitutionality of private relators under the FCA. Some of the lawyers who signed a recent letter to U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley criticizing Barr, including Harvard Law School Professor Nancy Gertner, participated in litigation against Celgene that the government declined to join but nevertheless generated $280 million in settlements and more than $30 million in legal fees.” [Daniel Fisher, Legal NewsLine/Forbes]

Tags: litigation finance, Mark Lanier, pharmaceuticals, qui tam, whistleblowers

Feds: we’ve had it with qui tam gamesmanship is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Banking and finance roundup

Walter Olson — Fri, 03 Aug 2018 10:03:37 +0000

“State-run retirement plans are the wrong way to protect the poor” [Andrew G. Biggs, AEI]
Fifth Circuit panel: Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) “is unconstitutionally structured and violates the separation of powers” [Jonathan Adler] Unconstitutional structure afflicts Consumer Finance Protection Bureau too [Ilya Shapiro on Cato amicus brief in Fifth Circuit case of CFPB v. All American Check Cashing, earlier here, etc.]
Study: financial advisers in Canada who are not subject to fiduciary duty have personal investments similar to their clients [Peter Van Doren]
Regulation can have a lulling effect. Might it even breed financial illiteracy? [Diego Zuluaga, Cato]
“As I predicted, the ratchet effect is going to save Dodd-Frank. Sigh.” [Bainbridge]
“SEC proposes to limit whistleblower awards” [Francine McKenna, MarketWatch]

Tags: CFPB, Dodd-Frank, Securities and Exchange Commission, Wall Street, whistleblowers

Banking and finance roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Banking and finance roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 10:49:03 +0000

SCOTUS by 9-0, Ginsburg writing, agrees with Cato amicus (and disagrees with Sen. Grassley amicus) that Dodd-Frank doesn’t cover “whistleblowers” who never told the SEC [Digital Realty Trust v. Somers: Ilya Shapiro/Harvard Law Review, Joel Nolette/Least Dangerous Blog, earlier]
Claim: “rolling back bank regulations is a good way to trigger a financial meltdown.” How much truth in that? [George Selgin, Cato]
Crosstown hypocrisy: a closer look at the cities who tell judges and bond investors as needed that their infrastructure will or won’t face future destruction owing to climate change [Dan Walters, CalMatters; Jay Newman, Wall Street Journal, earlier]
Mortgage systems in Canada, Germany appear to operate with less risk and lower default rates. Would Americans accept the trade-offs? [Arnold Kling]
Tag-along private suits following regulatory action, familiar in US courts, now crop up in Australia [Kevin LaCroix]
Regrettable Lovenheim ruling turned liberal shareholder groups into boardroom players [Prof. Bainbridge] The law of corporate social responsibility and shareholder accountability [same]

Tags: Australia, banks, climate change, corporate governance, Dodd-Frank, mortgages, securities litigation, whistleblowers

Banking and finance roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

February 28 roundup

Walter Olson — Wed, 28 Feb 2018 10:55:39 +0000

Eighth Circuit Cato amicus defends right of videographer couple in Minnesota not to film same-sex weddings for hire if they don’t care to [Ilya Shapiro and Reilly Stephens] Meanwhile: “California Court Upholds First Amendment Right Not to Bake Cake for Same-Sex Wedding” [Eugene Volokh, who takes a different side from Cato on expressive status of cake creation]
“It’s all about the shared love for Disney.” Is that why they’re suing? [Hugo Martin, Los Angeles Times]
“Whistleblower Lawyers See a Growth Area: Customs Fraud” [Henry Cutter, WSJ]
Supreme Court hears oral argument in Janus, the public employee union fees First Amendment case [Ilya Shapiro/Washington Examiner, SCOTUSBlog coverage by various authors, Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux/538, earlier]
Copyright: “US Judge dismisses Taylor Swift ‘haters’ case as too ‘banal'” [Mark Savage, BBC]
Dangerous for an advice letter from an NLRB lawyer to say that references to gender-based differences in James Damore memo “were discriminatory and constituted sexual harassment” Ken at Popehat, Robert VerBruggen/NRO, Jerome Woehrle]

Tags: Disney, First Amendment, harassment law, National Labor Relations Board, public employment, Supreme Court, whistleblowers

February 28 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“Last-Minute Whistle-Blowing Before An Expected Termination to Create A ‘Retaliation’ Claim”

Walter Olson — Thu, 14 Dec 2017 05:05:16 +0000

Some lawyers actually train potential clients to find something to blow the whistle on when the prospect of termination is nigh. “But perhaps in the future this may change and ambush firings will become the norm to avoid this kind of thing.” [Coyote]

Tags: retaliation, whistleblowers

“Last-Minute Whistle-Blowing Before An Expected Termination to Create A ‘Retaliation’ Claim” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Judge excoriates DoJ in False Claims Act case

Walter Olson — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 05:15:11 +0000

Problems with applying the whistleblower law that has been described as a “cash cow” for the U.S. Department of Justice [C. Ryan Barber, NLJ]:

A federal magistrate judge has struck a key witness and ordered the U.S. Justice Department to pay legal fees to HCR ManorCare Inc., one of the country’s largest providers of skilled nursing facilities, for alleged missteps in a case the government touted in the crackdown on fraud in the health care industry. “I don’t think this case should have ever been brought,” a federal magistrate judge in Virginia said at a recent hearing. “I have looked at this stuff, and I’m appalled, I’m embarrassed, I’m ashamed that the Department of Justice would rely on this kind of nonsense.”

Earlier on qui tam and the False Claims Act here. [& followup, Toledo Blade: feds drop case]

Tags: nursing homes, qui tam, whistleblowers

Judge excoriates DoJ in False Claims Act case is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Michigan, D.C. consider bounties for turning in those who underpay taxes

Walter Olson — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 04:05:01 +0000

While expanding year by year, the complex of federal and state False Claims Act/whistleblowing laws often has exempted tax filings from the broad incentive provided to denounce others for “false claims” made to the government, often in a contract or program administration context. But new bills sponsored in the District of Columbia by Councilwoman Mary Cheh and in Michigan by Senator Steven Bieda would apply the bounty system to the tax area, starting, at least, with larger taxpayers. [Stephen P. Kranz, Diann Smith, and Eric Carstens, McDermott, Will, & Emery] We’ve covered some of the problems with laws rewarding tax tipsters in states like New York and Illinois here and here. On the latter story, note an update: a court has denied fees to attorney Stephen Diamond in a case in which he was both the relator and relator’s attorney. “Diamond has served as relator in about 1,000 qui tam actions over the last 15 years. A recent investigation by Bloomberg BNA revealed Diamond has collected almost $12 million through this pattern of litigation.” [Michael Bologna, BNA Daily Tax Report]

Tags: Michigan, qui tam, taxes, Washington D.C., whistleblowers

Michigan, D.C. consider bounties for turning in those who underpay taxes is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system