Late last month, a three-judge panel of the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated portions of a former executive’s False Claims Act (“FCA”) whistleblower action against Health Management Associates Inc. (“HMA”), alleging that the company engaged in an illegal to generate referrals of Medicare and Medicaid patients to its facilitates.

In its ruling, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff-relator Michael Mastej’s claims relating to events in 2008 and 2009.  It only reversed the Middle District of Florida’s dismissal of Mastej’s allegations concerning events in 2007.  The district court had dismissed his claims for failure to satisfy the heightened pleading standards of Rule 9(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that a job applicant lacks standing to bring whistle-blower claims under the Energy Reorganization Act and the False Claims Act (“FCA”) because those laws’ retaliation provisions apply only to employees.  The Sixth Circuit is the first Court of Appeals to address this issue.

On November 12, 2014, in Halliburton, Inc. v. Admin. Review Bd., 5th Cir. No. 13-cv-60323, the Fifth Circuit affirmed an ARB’s decision that disclosing the identity of a whistleblower may constitute an “adverse action” under Section 806 of SOX.  This decision presents a number of risks for employers—even when they are acting conscientiously and in good faith—and is mandatory reading for in-house employment counsel and compliance professionals.

On October 20, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio found that the False Claims Act (“FCA”) did not protect an employee who was fired after revealing his history as a whistleblower and offering to help his new employer prevent overcharges on a government contract.  The court held that the employee failed to state a claim under the FCA because he did not act “in furtherance of” efforts to stop one or more specific or potential FCA violations.

In United States of America ex rel Rene Shupe v. Cisco Systems, Inc. and Avnet, Inc., No. 13-40807 (5th Cir. July 7, 2014), the Fifth Circuit reversed a district court’s order denying a motion to dismiss a qui tam whistleblower suit, holding that the False Claims Act does not apply to submissions by telecommunications companies to a federal service providing a program when the program was not funded by government money.

Last week, the Third Circuit reversed a New Jersey district court’s decision to dismiss a False Claims Act (FCA) qui tam law suit, holding that the court applied an overly demanding pleading standard to relator Thomas Foglia’s complaint.  The Third Circuit’s decision joins the growing debate that has split the circuits as to whether whistleblowers have to provide specific examples of false claims to survive a 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss.

A federal circuit court decision issued last week recognizes important limitations on a relator’s ability to bring multiple lawsuits against the same contractor or alleging related fraud.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit held that allowing multiple suits by the same relator would violate the intent behind the “first-to-file” rule:  preventing duplicative claims.

The relator, telecommunications consultant Stephen M. Shea, brought an initial lawsuit in 2007 claiming that Verizon had overbilled the GSA on two government contracts by including federal, state and local taxes in its bills.  After the federal government intervened in the suit, Verizon paid $93.5 million to settle these claims.  Shea’s share of the recovery was $19 million.