Professional Documents
Culture Documents
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit
1999)
On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District
of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 91-cv-00715) District Judge: Hon. Donald E.
Ziegler, Chief JudgeRobert L. Potter, Esq. Strassburger, McKenna,
Gutnick & Potter 322 Boulevard of the Allies Suite 700 Pittsburgh, PA
15222 Edward T. Dangel, III, Esq. (Argued) Dangel & Fine 10 Derne
Street Boston, MA 02114 Counsel for Appellant Hunter A. McGeary, Jr.,
Esq. David B. Fawcett, Jr., Esq. Dickie, McCamey & Chilcote Two Ppg
Place Suite 400 Pittsburgh, PA 15222-5402 Counsel for Appellee
Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, a non-profit Pennsylvania corporation
Martha H. Munsch, Esq. (Argued) Jack B. Cobetto, Esq. Reed, Smith,
Shaw & McClay 435 Sixth Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15219-1886 Counsel
for Appellees Charles D. Bluestone, an individual and University of
Pittsburgh, a non- profit Pennsylvania corporation
Before: Nygaard, Stapleton and Cowen, Circuit Judges
OPINION OF THE COURT
On this appeal we must determine when a private party can properly bring a
suit under the False Claims Act's qui tam provision, 31 U.S.C. 3730(b), which
allows an individual to sue on the government's behalf for damages caused by
another party's false claims. Congress has changed several times the rules
limiting when a private party can bring a qui tam suit under the False Claims
Act. We must resolve which of two versions of the Act apply to the various
grant applications that the researcher submitted to the NIH and what effect each
version has on the claims it controls.
A recent Supreme Court decision, Hughes Aircraft Co. v. United States ex rel.
Schumer, 520 U.S. 939, 117 S.Ct. 1871 (1997), discussed the retroactivity of
the 1986 Grassley Amendments, Congress's latest change to the Act's qui tam
rules. Applying Hughes, the District Court concluded that Erdem Cantekin, the
appellant, could not pursue qui tam claims based on grant applications that
Charles Bluestone, the researcher and appellee, submitted before October 27,
1986. Although our reasoning differs from the District Court's, we will affirm
its ruling on these applications submitted in 1986 or earlier.
For Cantekin's remaining qui tam claim, which was based on an application
submitted after the effective date of the 1986 amendments, the District Court
granted summary judgment in favor of Bluestone and the other defendants
because the Court concluded that Bluestone did not knowingly omit his
industry funding from the application. Contrary to the District Court, we
conclude that genuine factual disputes preclude summary judgment on whether
Bluestone knowingly submitted a false claim.1
* Both the appellant, Erdem Cantekin, and the appellee, Charles Bluestone, are
professors of otolaryngology at the University of Pittsburgh's medical school
and have worked together on research since the early 1970s. As part of their
collaboration, they created the Otitis Media Research Center to investigate
acute otitis media and otitis media with effusion, two ear diseases common in
children.
Cantekin claims that as early as 1976, he raised with Bluestone his failure to list
his industry funding on his NIH grant applications, but Bluestone allegedly
brushed him off, saying that he was not going to tell the "federal feather
merchants" because it was "none of their business" and would "muddy up the
waters." App. at 523. Cantekin also disputed Bluestone's interpretation of
research results, in particular the results of several industry-funded studies.
10
While the congressional report from the hearings was pending, the NIH
decided to conduct its own inquiry into Bluestone's conduct. The resulting
report by Howard Hyatt, then director of the NIH's Division of Management
Survey and Review, concluded that Bluestone and the Otitis Media Research
Center had "not generally disclosed to NIH the extent of its industry-sponsored
research." App. at 508. But Hyatt continued that since the grant instructions
were ambiguous, Bluestone's conduct was excusable. Hyatt also rejected
Cantekin's claim that Bluestone's research results were biased.
11
On September 10, 1990, the House released its report, which discussed ten
11
On September 10, 1990, the House released its report, which discussed ten
cases where grant recipients had engaged in misconduct. See H.R. Rep. No.
101-688, Are Scientific Misconduct and Conflict of Interest Hazardous to Our
Health?, 19th Report, Committee on Government Operations, 101st Cong., 2d
Sess. (Sept. 10, 1990). Bluestone's case was included among the ten. The
House report excoriated both the University of Pittsburgh's investigation as
well as Hyatt's report and challenged many of their findings. Several months
later, in December of 1990, the NIH issued a new report by the agency's
recently created Office of Scientific Integrity (OSI), which had reopened the
agency's inquiry into Bluestone's conduct. Dr. Suzanne Hadley, then Acting
Deputy Director of OSI, was in charge of this second NIH investigation. Her
affidavit explained that the OSI report
12
recommended that the Director of NIH require that Dr. Bluestone be place on a
period of five years of administrative oversight for having failed to disclose his
private pharmaceutical company research to NIH and having analyzed the data
from NIH-funded research in a manner biased towards the effectiveness of the
antibiotics he had evaluated with public monies.
13
App. at 481.
14
15
The review committee takes two votes on an application. The first vote is to
"approve" or "disapprove" the requested grant; receiving approval at this stage,
however, does not assure that the application will be funded. The application
may still be rejected based on the second vote, which establishes a "priority
score." To determine the priority score, each member of the review committee
gives the proposal a score between 1, for the highest priority, and 5 for the
lowest. Each member's score is then added together, the total is divided by the
number of members, and the resulting average is multiplied by 100, yielding
the final priority score. Thus, the highest priority score possible is 100 and the
lowest 500.
16
17
If we combine the NIH's method of calculating the priority score and the rough
guideline that an application with a score of 154 or higher would not receive
funding, at least around the time that Bluestone's application was considered,
we can see that one or two members can easily raise an applicant's priority
score above the cut-off for funding. For example, votes of 1, 1, 1, 1, and 5 yield
a priority score of 180; and votes of 1, 2, 1, 1, and 3 yield a score of 160. Even
votes of 1, 1, 1, 1, and 3 could place an applicant on the edge of rejection with a
priority score of 140.
18
After the priority vote, an executive secretary, who functions as a staff member
for the committee, writes a report describing the review committee's
deliberations and submits the report to the Council of the Institute. The council
receives applications from the various review committees within the institute
and makes the final determination of which applications will be funded.
Council members, like the review committee members, are not NIH employees
and are chosen for their expertise in their field. Unlike the review committee
members, however, council members are appointed to serve for four-year
terms.
19
Once a multi-year grant has been approved for funding, NIH assigns the grant
to a "program administrator," who is in charge of administering the grant. Each
year the grant's principal investigator, Bluestone in our case, and the grantee
institution must submit a special continuing application, or progress report.
These progress reports are "noncompetitive" in that funding during the allotted
time has already been approved. The purpose of the progress reports is to
informed the NIH of how the research is advancing, identify the amount of the
budget for the next year, and provide information about key personnel engaged
in the research.
20
Two of the five members of an NIH review committee that voted to approve
one of Bluestone's grants stated in affidavits that if they had known about his
industry funding, it would have affected their decision. Dr. Perkell, one of the
review committee members, said that Bluestone's undisclosed industry funds
were not "common knowledge." He continued:[I]t is my opinion that had Dr.
Bluestone disclosed his relationships with the private pharmaceutical industry,
the competing renewal application of NS 16337 which came before the Review
Committee of which I was a member would have been evaluated more critically
with regards to: demands on investigator time, possible conflicts of interest, the
effects of bias on the value of the proposed studies, safeguards in the study
design to ensure unbiased interpretation and evaluation of the results of the
proposed studies. The more critical evaluation would have had an impact on the
recommendation for approval and on the priority score. The impact on the
priority score I gave would have been material and negative. In my opinion,
based on my knowledge of past behavior of my fellow ]members of the Review
Committee in evaluating and assigning priority scores to several hundred other
applications the impact on the overall priority funding score would have been
material and negative.
21
App. at 473-74.
22
Dr. Schwartz, the chair of the review committee, also stated in an affidavit that
she was unaware of Bluestone's industry funding and that had she known, it
would have had a "material and negative" effect on her evaluation of the
application. She explained that a researcher who receives substantial funding
from a pharmaceutical company can be subtly biased in favor of finding that
the company's drugs are effective. Disclosure of this potential source of bias is
important to reviewers even if the grant might be ultimately approved since the
review committee might not approve the application until certain additional
safeguards are implemented. "When bias, or potential bias, are revealed by
disclosure of a funding source with a vested interest in the outcome of the
research, reviewers are alerted to look for defects in the experimental design
which could compromise the work proposed." App. at 1125. Elsewhere, she
explained:
23
A bias experimenter can still perform valid work, but the experiments must be
carefully designed so that enrolled patients are randomly assigned to different
test groups, objective criteria for measuring function are used, and both subject
and observer are blinded as to which experimental condition (i.e. new drug,
current standard drug, or other control substance) applied to a particular subject.
Appropriate statistical tests must be applied to the data to assure that
interpretations of efficacy of the test drugs are valid.
24
Id.
25
The three other members of the review committee, Drs. Miller, Meyerhoff, and
Goode, all submitted affidavits saying that they were aware of Bluestone's
industry funding. Dr. Miller, for example, stated that "I was fully aware that Dr.
Bluestone was receiving very substantial support from private pharmaceutical
companies to do drug efficacy studies. . . . I was not at all troubled by the fact
that Dr. Bluestone was receiving such funding." App. 1104-05.
26
None of the three, however, informed Drs. Perkell or Schwartz of this outside
funding. Dr. Schwartz's affidavit notes that the other committee members did
not mention Bluestone's undisclosed funding at the review committee meetings,
nor did they "raise the issue of possible conflicts of interest or of the adequacy
of safeguards to control against bias in the interpretation of study results..."
App. at 1125.
II.
27
28
We begin with the threshold issue of which grant applications can be subject to
a qui tam suit. Prior to the 1986 amendments to the False Claims Act, a private
party was barred from bringing a qui tam suit if the action was "based on
evidence or information the Government had when the action was brought." 31
U.S.C. 3730(b)(4) (1982 ed.). The government itself, of course, could still
bring suit for such a violation; only private parties were barred from seeking
recovery. The implicit logic of the pre-1986 law was that if the government had
the relevant information before the plaintiff initiated suit, then the government
must be aware of the false claims and didn't need the assistance of private
parties to ferret them out. And if the government knew about the information
yet did nothing, then the government probably thought the suit meritless, and
any private action was apt to be spurious, driven only by the lure of the Act's
sizable damages.
29
Despite the pre-1986 law's legitimate aim of preventing spurious suits, its bar
for qui tam suits imperfectly achieved its purposes for a variety of reasons: 1)
the government lacks the resources to investigate and prosecute all false claims
even when the government has information revealing fraud; 2) a government
official who is deemed to "have" the information may not recognize the
connection between the information and a particular false claim; 3) the official
may have an interest in not bringing the fraud to light for a number of reasons,
such as an interest in protecting the official's or the agency's reputation; and 4)
other mechanisms, more directly focused on the merits of a suit, are available
for filtering out spurious claims. Congress was also concerned that under the
old law, whistle blowers who came forward and exposed fraud to government
officials before filing suit were later being barred from bringing a qui tam suit.
Indeed, as our Discussion below makes clear, Cantekin's case itself illustrates
this consequence of the pre-1986 law.
30
31
Instead of prohibiting all qui tam suits that are based on information the
government "has" when the suit is brought, the Grassley Amendments
introduced a new standard: a qui tam suit will be barred only if it is based on
information that was "publicly disclosed" at various hearings, in certain types
of reports, or by the media. 31 U.S.C. 3730(e)(4)(A). Information that the
government "has," but that was never publicly disclosed, does not bar a qui tam
suit. Even if there is "public disclosure" within the meaning of the Grassley
Amendments, a qui tam suit can still go forward if the plaintiff is an original
source of that publicly disclosed information. 31 U.S.C. 3730(e)(4)(B). An
original source is defined as someone who has "direct and independent
knowledge" of the information and who has "voluntarily provided" the
government with the information before the suit was initiated. Id.
32
Groundless suits are addressed in part by provisions requiring that all qui tam
plaintiffs submit sealed information to the government before the suit proceeds.
After reviewing this information, the government can decide whether to join
the suit, allow the private party to continue alone, or, most significantly,
dismiss the suit. See 31 U.S.C. 3730(b)(2) and (c)(2)(A).
33
In Hughes Aircraft Co. v. United States ex rel. Schumer, 520 U.S. 939, 117
S.Ct. 1871 (1997), the Supreme Court held that the 1986 amendments did not
apply retroactively to conduct occurring prior to the amendment's effective
date. The Court stated in a footnote, however, that since in Hughes both the
"false claim submission" and the "disclosure to the government" of the fraud
occurred before the effective date of the 1986 amendments, the Court did not
have to address which of the two events should be used for determining
retroactivity. 520 U.S. at 946, n. 4, 117 S.Ct. at 1876, n.4.
34
In applying Hughes, the District Court concluded that for all of Bluestone's
grant applications submitted prior to the 1986 effective date, the date of
"disclosure to the government" also occurred before October 27, 1986. Thus,
the District Court decided that, as in Hughes, it did not have to resolve whether
the disclosure date or the date of submission controls.
35
Although the parties sharply dispute whether there was "disclosure to the
government" prior to the 1986 effective date, we need not resolve the issue. We
conclude that even though the Supreme Court did not expressly reach in
Hughes whether retroactivity is determined based on the submission date or the
disclosure date, the Court's analysis strongly supports using the former, i.e., the
date the allegedly false claim was submitted. And once we use the submission
date and apply the pre-1986 law to all grant applications submitted prior to the
October 27, 1986 effective date, there can be no doubt that before Cantekin
began his qui tam suit, the government "had" the information upon which it
was based.
36
By the time Cantekin filed his complaint in the District Court on April 29,
1991, the House had conducted its hearings and issued its report, and the NIH
had issued both Hyatt's memo and the later report by the Office of Scientific
Integrity. These events unquestionably establish that the government had the
information on which Cantekin's suit was based.2 Thus, the only live issue is
why we should use the submission date for determining retroactivity.
37
When the Supreme Court concluded in Hughes that the Grassley Amendments
should not be applied retroactively, the Court recognized that knowingly
submitting a false claim is illegal under both versions of the statute. The Court
also noted that under both the amended statute and the previous statute, the
total amount of a defendant's liability does not depend on who sued; the
defendant must pay the same amount regardless of whether the government or a
qui tam relator brought the action. Nonetheless, the Supreme Court reasoned
that the amendment's change in when qui tam suits can be brought does impose
new penalties on defendants.
38
39
520 U.S. at 948, 117 S.Ct. at 1877 (citations omitted). After noting that the
1986 amendments eliminate a defense, the Court commented that the
amendments also in effect create a new cause of action because the courts are
open to an expanded class of plaintiffs.
40
We think this reasoning would be in deep tension, if not outright conflict, with
using the date of disclosure instead of the date of submission for determining
retroactivity. Our primary rationale is very simple. If we invoked the disclosure
date to apply the amendments to a false claim submitted before the
amendment's effective date, then the new penalties listed by the Court, i.e., the
loss of a defense and the creation of a new cause of action, would be imposed
after the defendant acted. The reason that using the disclosure date would have
this effect is that the defendant's conduct ends with submitting the false claims;
the defendant is not the one, or at least not usually, who makes the disclosure to
the government. Since the Court rejected in Hughes an application of the
Grassley Amendments that would allow the law to "attach new disabilities" to
conduct committed prior to the amendment's passage, we think the Court
implicitly foreclosed using the disclosure date.
41
primarily focused on what other people release to the government while the
amendment's "public disclosure" test has a substantial emphasis on information
released by government . On the other hand, the Supreme Court's phrase,
"disclosure to the government," does not accurately capture the pre-1986 law
since the government could "have" the information within the meaning of the
pre-1986 test based on what the government learned from its own investigative
efforts. And by speaking of "disclosure," and not information the government
"has," the Supreme Court's language is suggestive of the "public disclosure"
test.
42
Regardless of how one parses the language, however, the real problem is that
choosing between the pre- and post- 1986 standards injects a kind of circularity
into the retroactivity analysis. To determine the date of "disclosure to the
government," we must apply either the pre-or post- 1986 test in order to decide
whether we will apply the pre- or post-1986 test to the alleged false claim. This
awkward need to stipulate at the outset what our analysis is supposed to decide
reinforces our Conclusion that the date the claim was submitted should
determine the retroactivity of the Grassley Amendments.3
43
The District Court noted in passing that a Ninth Circuit opinion, decided before
the Supreme Court's opinion in Hughes, relied on the disclosure date for
determining the retroactivity of the Grassley Amendments. See United States
ex rel. Anderson v. Northern Telecom., Inc., 52 F.3d 810, 814 (9th Cir. 1995).
The main problem with Anderson is that its reasoning rested heavily on the
point that "the 1986 amendment did not change the legal consequences of
[defendant] Northern Telecom's conduct." 52 F.3d at 814. Since Hughes
rejected that position and emphasized that the Grassley Amendments do "attach
new disabilities" to a defendant's past conduct, we think that Anderson's
authority has been undermined. In short, we conclude that we should use the
date the claim was submitted for determining the retroactivity of the Grassley
Amendment's "public disclosure" bar to qui tam suits.
44
45
Not all of Cantekin's claims were based on grant applications submitted prior to
October 27, 1986. On January 28, 1987, Bluestone submitted a new grant
application without listing his industry funding, and he again failed to disclose
when he revised the application on May 1, 1987. The District Court dismissed
Cantekin's quit am claim based on this revised application because the Court
concluded on summary judgment that the evidence "does not permit a finding
that Dr. Bluestone `knowingly' submitted false or fraudulent claims to the
government." App. at 1627.
46
47
The District Court's primary rationale for granting summary judgment was that
the grant application and instructions were unclear. Before we address whether
the instructions are ambiguous, or more properly whether there is no genuine
dispute that they are, we note that Cantekin stated in his affidavit that he
specifically informed Bluestone that he should disclose his private funding.
48
In 1976, when Dr. Bluestone and I were applying for various NIH grants, I
raised with Dr. Bluestone the question whether he, as principal investigator,
should not be disclosing to NIH his other research support, especially from
pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Bluestone replied that it was "none of their
business," and that he was not going to tell the "federal feather merchants"
because it would "muddy up the waters." Dr. Bluestone added that "idiots like
Buckminster Ranney would not understand." Dr. Buckminster Ranney was an
NIH-employee working with the National Institute of Neurological,
Communicative Disorders, and Stroke ("NINCDS") with whom Dr. Bluestone
had dealt.
49
App. at 523. This affidavit not only creates a genuine dispute that Bluestone
"knowingly" omitted his industry funding, but it also provides evidence that
Bluestone had the specific intent to defraud, proof of which is not required for a
violation of the False Claims Act.
50
Even apart from the evidence that Bluestone was specifically informed that he
should disclose his industry funding, we conclude that there is ample evidence
that the instructions are clear. Other members of Bluestone's Otitis Media
Research Center correctly followed the instructions and disclosed their outside
research funding, including private sources. App. at 38. Similarly, one of the
NIH review committee members, Schwartz, stated in her affidavit that:
51
funded since 1972 involving seven competing renewals and several revised
resubmissions . . . I have always found directions for completing the "other
support" pages of NIH grant applications to be unambiguous.
52
53
A review of the instructions themselves suggests that they clearly indicate that
industry funding should be disclosed. On the page that instructs applicants to
list their "other support," the form provides:
54
For each of the professionals named on page 2, list, in three separate groups: (1)
active support; (2) applications pending review and/or funding; (3) applications
planned or being prepared for submission. Include all Federal, non-Federal, and
institutional grant and contract support. If none, state "NONE." For each item
give the source of support, identifying number, project title, name of principal
investigator / program director, time or percent of effort on the project by
professional named, annual direct costs, and entire period of support. (If part of
a larger project, provide the titles of both the parent grant and the subproject
and give the annual direct costs for each.) Briefly describe the contents of each
item listed. If any of these overlap, duplicate, or are being replaced or
supplemented by the present application, justify and delineate the nature and
extent of the scientific and budgetary overlaps and boundaries.
55
56
In concluding that the instructions were ambiguous, the District Court relied on
Hyatt's report, which cited an earlier version of the instructions and said that
"many institutions were found to interpret those instructions improperly." App.
at 509. Hyatt explained that the NIH changed the instructions to avoid
ambiguities.
57
58
List all research support for each individual including requests now being
considered, as well as any proposals being planned, regardless of relevance to
this application. Include also current awards, research career program awards,
training grants, regardless of the source of support.
59
App. at 509. Hyatt apparently believed that these instructions were ambiguous
because, unlike the improved instructions, they did not specifically refer to
"non-Federal" sources. The instructions did, however, direct applicants to list
"all" research support "regardless of source" and "regardless of relevance."
Hyatt claimed that "many" institutions had incorrectly interpreted the earlier
instructions, but the drafter of the NIH forms testified that he could not recall
any specific case, except Bluestone's of course, where a researcher
misunderstood what was required by the "other support" question.
60
Third, the House report sharply criticized Hyatt's Conclusions and explained
that:
61
NIH officials were incorrect in describing the content of the NIH forms; the
section regarding "Other Support" was revised in late 1979 and revised forms,
containing the more explicit language were available to applicants in 1980 or
1981, depending on the type of application.
62
App. at 38.
63
Fourth, Dr. Hadley, the Acting Deputy Director of the NIH's Office of
Scientific Integrity, asserted in her affidavit that she had not encountered any
evidence that applicants found the instructions to be ambiguous.
64
65
App. at 482.
66
half-billion dollar industry. As Cantekin points out, people are likely to give
much greater weight to NIH research than to the findings of companies making
the drugs at issue. Given this greater public trust in the results of governmentfunded research, and the undeniable risks of bias, the government clearly has a
strong interest in ensuring that it acts as an impartial investigator, especially
when investigating treatments that have a disputed efficacy and a high
aggregate cost. Bluestone can be reasonably expected to know of the
government's heightened interest in avoiding bias. As a scientist, he must be
fully aware that rooting out potential sources of bias in our interpretations of
empirical data is central to scientific inquiry.
67
The District Court and the appellees' next argument is that in the materials
accompanying some of Bluestone's applications, there were references to his
industry funding. These references were by no means complete disclosures of
the grants he was receiving from pharmaceutical companies, nor did the
references include the full information, such as the amount of the funding, that
was requested in the "Other Support" section of the grant application.
Furthermore, many of the references that the appellees rely upon were included
with "progress reports," which were submitted after a grant was approved. But
the most important point is that scattered references buried in voluminous
accompanying materials do not comply with the application's disclosure
requirements.
68
When a reviewer is faced with complex proposals that include large masses of
accompanying information, it makes sense to insist that the applicants must
disclose in one place the applicant's other grants that may raise conflicts of
interests or impose competing demands on the applicant's time. A reviewer
who is reading an applicant's accompanying journal article may not notice,
while engrossed in the details of a specialized scientific issue, a fleeting
reference to private funding and think of its significance for potential conflicts
of interest. Applications distill and organize information for a reason.
69
Evidence in the record bears out this point. One of the review committee
members, Perkell, stated in his affidavit that:
70
As a grant reviewer and evaluator I have always looked to the "Other Support"
pages to form an estimate of the percentage of effort the Principal Investigator
and other investigators have available to do the proposed work, to look for
possible overlap between proposed projects and others already funded or
pending, and to identify possible conflicts of interest or possible sources of bias
in the experiments. These factors are important to me in evaluating an
application as a whole and in assigning it a priority score.
71
72
The District Court's last reason for concluding that Bluestone did not
knowingly submit a false claim is that he sent a letter on June 23, 1987 to
Elkins, his program administrator, listing his industry funding. We find the
District Court's reliance on this letter unconvincing. Not only was it written
months after Bluestone submitted his application in January and May of 1987,
but more important, the letter was only sent after he was under investigation.
Given that Bluestone only sent the letter after Cantekin made his allegations to
the NIH and the university, the timing of the letter tends to reinforce, not
undermine, Cantekin's allegations that Bluestone knew that he was supposed to
disclose his industry funding. One can easily infer that the letter was not an
expression of an honest oversight, but an attempt to cover up prior misconduct
and limit its damage.
73
Cantekin alleges that program administrators' interests are more closely allied
with grant applicants' than any other NIH official, so it is noteworthy that
Bluestone chose to notify Elkins, and Elkins alone, at the NIH. Reading the
evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. We note that if
Bluestone calculated that disclosure to Elkins would be the least damaging step
he could take, his judgment apparently proved correct since the letter he sent to
Elkins was never forwarded beyond the program-administration offices.
74
75
76
(A) the person committing the violation of this subsection furnished officials of
the United States responsible for investigating false claims violations with all
information known to such person about the violation within 30 days after the
date on which the defendant first obtained the information;
77
(B) such person fully cooperated with any Government investigation of such
violation; and
78
(C) at the time such person furnished the United States with the information
about the violation, no criminal prosecution, civil action, or administrative
action had commenced under this title with respect to such violation, and the
person did not have actual knowledge of the existence of an investigation into
such violation;
79
the court may assess not less than 2 times the amount of damages which the
Government sustains because of the act of the person. A person violating this
subsection shall also be liable to the United States Government for the costs of
a civil action brought to recover any such penalty or damages.
80
31 U.S.C. 3729(a)(7).
81
The first point worth noting is that this provision merely reduces the
defendant's liability from treble to double damages; it does not exonerate a
defendant for a violation. Second, Bluestone's letter of June 23 was more than
30 days after the date he made his false statements. Third, Bluestone's letter
was sent after he was under investigation, and thus he arguably cannot satisfy
subsection (C). It also may be open to dispute whether he has "fully
cooperated" or provided "all information" that he knew about the violation.
82
Taking up a different issue, the District Court cited United States ex rel. Hopper
v. Anton, 91 F.3d 1261, 1266- 67 (9th Cir. 1996) for the proposition that a
"technical violation of rules and regulations of an agency is not actionable
under the FCA." App. at 1627. What the Ninth Circuit held in Hopper,
however, was that not every regulatory violation is tantamount to making a
knowingly false statement to the government. Since the regulatory violation in
Hopper did not involve making a knowingly false statement in a claim
submitted to the government, the court held there was no violation of the False
Claims Act. Thus, Hopper does not stand for the proposition that before a court
allows a suit to proceed under the False Claims Act, it must weigh how serious
it thinks a particular knowing falsehood was in a claim submitted to the
government.
83
Although we reject the District Court's reading of Hopper, the Court's remark
about "technical violations" suggests two slightly different objections:
Bluestone's omissions were not material, and even if they were, they did not
cause any damages to the government. We will consider first the materiality
objection.
84
Courts have held that claims under the False Claims Act are subject to a
judicially imposed materiality requirement. See, e.g., Harrison v. Westinghouse
Savannah River Co., 176 F.3d 776, 784 (4th Cir. 1999). And the Supreme
Court recently held in Neder v. United States, U.S. , 119 S.Ct. 1827 (1999) that
there is a materiality requirement under the federal mail-fraud, wire-fraud, and
bank-fraud statutes. In a footnote, the Supreme Court indicated, however, that
the term "false statement," unlike "fraudulent statement," does not imply a
materiality requirement. Neder, 119 S.Ct. at 1840 n.7. Given that the False
Claims Act prohibits merely making a knowingly false claim and does not
require a specific intent to defraud, perhaps Neder argues against a materiality
requirement. In any event, we need not decide whether there is a materiality
requirement under the False Claims Act, because even if there is, we think it is
clear that Bluestone's failure to disclose his industry funding would readily
qualify as material. In Neder, the Supreme Court quoted from the Restatement
(Second) of Torts, which provides two alternatives for showing that a matter is
material:
85
86
(b) the maker of the representation knows or has reason to know that its
recipient regards or is likely to regard the matter as important in determining his
choice of action, although a reasonable man would not so regard it.
87
Neder, 119 S.Ct. at 1840 n.5 (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts 538
(1976)).
88
89
We turn now to the issue of damages. Even if the letter to Elkins does little to
undermine Cantekin's claim that Bluestone knowingly submit false claims, the
appellees argue that the letter still shows that his earlier failure to disclose
caused no harm. Bluestone sent the letter to Elkins on June 23, 1987, but his
pending post-1986 application was not finally approved until February 4, 1988,
when he was awarded $321,137. The appellees argue, therefore, that no harm
could have been caused because Bluestone disclosed his industry funding
before any grant money was dispensed for his post-1986 grant application.
90
The first problem with this argument is that, as noted above, the letter to Elkins
never left the program- administration offices, so the information about
Bluestone's industry funding never reached the review committee or any other
decision maker involved in approving Bluestone's grant. Thus, we do not know
whether the review committee or the council of the institute would have
approved the grant if they had known about the information included in the
letter. Given that two committee members who reviewed Bluestone's
application in 1984 and 1985 would have assigned lower priority scores to his
application, and given that one member's vote can effectively deny funding, we
think whether the grant would have been approved and what damages were
incurred raise genuine factual disputes. We also want to point out that even if
the review committee and council would have approved the application once
they knew about the industry funding, they still might have imposed additional
safeguards or requirements. Having not been informed, they did not have an
opportunity to consider these other intermediate steps.
91
It may seem unfair to hold Bluestone accountable for the decision made in the
program-administration offices not to pass along Bluestone's letter. As noted
above, however, the statute expressly provides a mechanism for dealing with a
defendant who reveals his false claim. Since this provision merely reduces the
defendant's liability for the damages actually caused, and since, in any event,
Bluestone may not satisfy the prerequisites, Bluestone remains liable for the
harm that in fact was caused to the government as a result of his false
statements.
92
It is a basic principle of tort law that once a defendant sets in motion a tort, the
defendant is generally liable for the damages ultimately caused, unless there
are intervening causes. See, e.g., W. Keeton, D. Dobbs, R. Keeton, & D. Owen,
Prosser and Keeton on Law of Torts 44 (5th ed. 1984). Analysis of
intervening causes is often used as a way of evaluating and assigning
responsibility for harm caused. Id. Given that Bluestone only sent his letter
after he was under the pressure of investigation, his letter does little to lessen
his culpability, and therefore, the fact that the letter was not forwarded is not
plausibly treated as an intervening cause. To the extent that analysis of
intervening causes focuses on the foreseeability of a putative intervening cause,
we think it is significant that Bluestone chose to send the letter to Elkins, his
program administrator, who did not decide whether he would receive funding
for his application. Bluestone did not, for instance, submit another revised
application as he did earlier in the spring. In short, the fact that the letter was
not forwarded was a risk that Bluestone assumed when he submitted the claims.
93
The appellees have directed our attention to several cases discussing causation
requirements under the False Claims Act. In United States v. First Nat'l Bank of
Cicero, 957 F.2d 1362 (7th Cir. 1992) the court held that the government only
needed to show that it would not have made a payment "but for" the false
statement. In reaching that holding, the Seventh Circuit expressly disagreed
with United States v. Hibbs, 568 F.2d 347 (3d Cir. 1977), which, according to
Cicero, imposed a more stringent causation requirement. Specifically, Cicero
said that in addition to requiring that the government would not have paid the
claim but for the false statement, Hibbs effectively held that the "subject matter
of the false statement . . . be the source of the government's loss." 957 F.2d at
1373 (citing Hibbs, 568 F.2d at 349, 351). We need not decide either whether
Hibbs should be read as imposing such a requirement, or whether Hibbs is
consistent with the changes made in the False Claims Act since that decision.
We think it suffices to point out that both standards can be satisfied: as we
concluded in our Discussion of damages, Cantekin has presented evidence that
Bluestone's grant might not have been approved but for his false statements
about his industry funding (or that the grant would have been approved with
additional restrictions or requirements). And the content of Bluestone's
omissions about his industry funding could have made the difference in
whether his grant was approved or not, so even under the Seventh Circuit's
reading of Hibbs, the "subject matter of the false statement" could have been
the source of the government's loss.
IV
94
For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the order of the District Court dated
February 9, 1998 and reverse the order dated September 4, 1998. Each party to
bear its own costs.
Notes:
1
Cantekin objects that when the District Court granted summary judgment
against his pre-1986 claims, the Court erred by converting a 12(b)(6) motion
into a motion for summary judgment without first giving adequate notice and
an opportunity to respond. See, e.g., Rose v. Bartle, 871 F.2d 331, 342 (3d Cir.
1989). Cantekin raised this point in a motion for reconsideration, but the
District Court rejected the argument, noting that under Rose a failure to give
notice can be excused if "harmless." Id. Since we evaluate retroactivity based
on the submission date, and since it is undisputed that Cantekin's suit was filed
after the NIH and Congressional investigations, we conclude that any error
stemming from the conversion of the motion was indeed harmless.
3
It is true that a court could apply pre-1986 law to assign a date to the
"disclosure to the government" and yet still find that post-1986 law should
ultimately control the claim. For example, suppose that after the defendant
submitted a false claim in 1985, the plaintiff informed the government of the
fraud in 1987, filed a qui tam suit in 1988, and qualified as an original source.
Even if we applied the pre-1986 law to date "disclosure to the government," we
would not bar the plaintiff 's suit. This follows because the date that the
government learned of the fraud, i.e., sometime in 1987, was after the effective
date of the 1986 amendments. And once we applied the amended law, we
would see that the plaintiff could go forward with the suit since the plaintiff is
an original source, and no public disclosure occurred aside from the plaintiff's
suit. The circularity of our presupposing pre-1986 law isn't really eliminated,
however, just because in a certain class of cases using the pre-1986 law to
assign a date to disclosure leads us to apply post-1986 law. We still need a
justification for applying the pre-1986 law at the outset when it may foreclose
many claims that the post-1986 disclosure test would not. We could, of course,
appeal to the considerations cited in Hughes for using the pre-1986 law. But
once we adopt those arguments, we have reason to abandon the "date of
disclosure" altogether as a way of determining retroactivity.
STAPLETON, Circuit Judge, Concurring:
95