Law

On September 17, 2015, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision reviving cases that were originally filed in September of 2011 and then a second filed in January 2013 by a former employee of Norfolk Southern Railway Company (NS).  

In the first lawsuit, the whistleblower claimed that NS suspended him due to his race.  After the district court sided in favor of NS, he filed a second lawsuit. This complaint alleged that NS suspended him for reporting rail safety offenses, in violation of the whistleblower protection provision of the Federal Railroad Safety Act (FRSA). The district court again granted summary judgment in favor of NS, asserting that the whistleblower's second lawsuit was barred by the FRSA's “Election of Remedies” provision, which provides that “[a]n employee may not seek protection under both this section and another provision of law for the same allegedly unlawful act of the railroad carrier.” 49 U.S.C. § 20109(f).

In July 2011, NS suspended the whistleblowing employee without pay for six months. Neither party agreed to the factual basis of the suspension. NS claims it suspended the employee because he drank a beer on duty and then operated a company-owned automobile in violation of company policy. The plaintiff, who is African–American, claims the suspension was motivated both by his race and in retaliation for federal rail safety whistleblowing. 

Less than two months after filing his first lawsuit, Lee filed a complaint with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) under the FRSA's whistleblower provision, 49 U.S.C. § 20109. That provision prohibits railroad carriers from, among other things, discriminating against employees who “refuse to violate or assist in the violation of any Federal law, rule, or regulation relating to railroad safety or security.” Id. § 20109(a)(2). According to Lee, federal law required him to identify—or “bad order”—defective rail cars for repair. NS capped the number of cars he could tag with such orders, however, effectively requiring him to violate federal law. When he refused to comply with the caps, Lee alleges that NS suspended him in July 2011.

First, the district court concluded that, to the extent Lee's claims were based on the collective bargaining agreement, they were preempted by the Railway Labor Act (RLA), 45 U.S.C. § 151 et seq., which requires arbitration of such claims. The court further concluded that NS was not vicariously liable for the individual instances of racial harassment by Lee's co-workers.

Less than a month after the district court granted NS summary judgment in the first lawsuit, Lee filed his FRSA retaliation lawsuit. The allegations in this second lawsuit largely track those in Lee's OSHA complaint. Lee again alleged that he was tasked with tagging defective train cars with “bad orders,” but that NS capped the number of cars he could tag. In doing so, Lee contends NS pressured him to “violate federal rail safety regulations and laws and violate NS's own safety and mechanical department rules.” 

On May 20, 2014, the district court granted summary judgment to NS on Lee's FRSA claims, concluding that Lee's first lawsuit for racial discrimination under Section 1981 constituted an election of remedies under FRSA Section 20109(f) that barred Lee's subsequent FRSA retaliation action. Lee then timely noted this appeal.

A former city employee who claimed she was fired for acting as a whistleblower on official misconduct filed a complaint in April 2011.  Her specific accusations were that the city was in violation of New Jersey's Conscientious Employee Protection Act when it fired her for whistleblowing during her employment. The details of the settlement were not disclosed.

Between 1995 until her dismissal in 2011, the whistleblower served as the city's principal personnel clerk. She was barred from asserting several pieces of evidence if the case went to trial. The barred evidence included her claim the city fired her for cooperating with FBI agents conducting an investigation in 2005 during Operation Bid Rig.

Operation Bid Rig was the state's largest federal corruption sting, targeting dozens of politicians and officials in Monmouth and Ocean counties and elsewhere in the state.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against The University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) who is accused of defrauding Medicaid by submitting duplicate claims for payment.

The whistleblower will receive a $801,000 share of the total federal recovery.

The whistleblwoer case, filed in July 2004, alleged that From 1993 to 2004, UMDNJ’s University Hospital submitted claims to Medicaid for outpatient physician services that were also being billed by doctors working in the hospital’s outpatient centers. By submitting duplicate claims for payment, University Hospital effectively doubled billed the government’s Medicaid program.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Science Applications International Inc. (SAIC); its subcontractor, Applied Enterprise Solutions LLC (AES); AES CEO Dale Galloway; and former government employees Stephen Adamec and Robert Knesel. They are accused of submitting or causing the submission of false claims and conspired to submit such claims under a contract with the General Services Administration (GSA).

According to the settlement details,  SAIC will pay $20,400,000 and AES and Dale Galloway will pay $2,166,000. Adamec and Knesel are paying $110,000. The whistleblower will receive a $560,000 share of the recovery and was previously agreed to during the previous settlement of $2,000,000 with Lockheed Martin.

The contract in questions was to provide support services for the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage (NCCIPS) at the NAVO MSRC at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Miss. GSA awarded the NCCIPS task order in April 2004 to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), which teamed with Lockheed Martin and Applied Enterprise Solutions (AES) to perform under the task order. SAIC was paid a total of $115 million under the contract, of which Lockheed Martin was paid $2 million according to the terms of its subcontract with SAIC.

The case, filed in May 2009, alleged that prior to the issuance, and once the NCCIPS solicitation had been publicized, that then government employees, Stephen Adamec and Robert Knesel, conspired with Lockheed Martin, Galloway, SAIC and AES to ensure that SAIC and its teaming partners were awarded the task order by (a) sharing non public, advance procurement information with the SAIC team that was not provided to other potential bidders; (b) sharing information about the solicitation with the SAIC team before providing that information to other bidders; and choosing a type of contract and putting language in the solicitation in order to bias the selection process to favor the SAIC team.

A settlement has been reached in relation to two whistleblower class action lawsuits brought against Columbus Regional Healthcare System (Columbus Regional) and Dr. Andrew Pippas.  They are accused of submitting claims in violation of the Stark Law and submitting claims for payment to federal health care programs that misrepresented the level of services they provided. 

Under the settlement agreement, of the $25.425 million that Columbus Regional and Pippas have agreed to pay to resolve their respective civil claims, they will pay $24,666,040 to the federal government for federal healthcare program losses and $758,960 to the state of Georgia for the state share of its Medicaid losses, plus additional contingent payments not to exceed $10 million, for a maximum settlement amount of $35 million.The whistleblower's recovery amount was not disclosed.

The first of the two lawsuits was filed in May 2012.  The lawsuits alleged that that from May 2006 through May 2013, Columbus Regional submitted claims to federal health care programs for services at higher levels than supported by the documentation, and between 2010 and 2012, they submitted claims to federal health care programs for radiation therapy at higher levels than the therapy that was provided.

A $10.4 Million penalty has been issued for violations of the Act to Prevent Pollution and felony obstruction of justice charges against Columbia Shipmanagement (Deutschland) GmbH (CSM-D), a German corporation, and Columbia Shipmanagement Ltd. (CSM-CY), a Cypriot company.

According to the sentence details, $2.6 million of the penalty will be directed to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to fund community service projects selected to help restore the coastal environment of New Jersey and Delaware hit by Hurricane Sandy.  The remaining $7.8 million is designated as a criminal fine. 

The shipping firms admitted that four of their ships - three oil tankers and one container ship - had intentionally bypassed required pollution prevention equipment and falsified the oil record book, a required log regularly inspected by the U.S. Coast Guard.  The case is the largest vessel pollution settlement in either New Jersey or Delaware. 

The companies previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton on March 21, 2013, to six counts involving three vessels in New Jersey and four counts involving one ship in Delaware.  The counts consist of violations of the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships for failing to maintain an accurate oil record book, obstruction of justice and making false statements.

The Delaware investigation began in October 2012 after several crew members of the M/T Nordic Passat provided the Coast Guard with a thumb drive containing photographs and video showing how illegal discharges had been sent overboard through the ship’s sewage system.

The investigation into the M/T King Emerald was launched on May 7, 2012, after several crew members provided cell phone photos and other evidence to Coast Guard officers conducting a routine inspection. 

The charges involving the M/V Cape Maas stem from a whistleblower report to the Coast Guard when the ship visited the port in San Francisco.  The whistleblower provided a video showing the operation of the oily water separator pumping overboard without the use of the oil content monitor to detect and prevent oil from being illegally discharged.    

Violations on a fourth ship, the M/T Cape Taft, which was anchored in New York waters and destined for New Jersey, were uncovered just weeks before the March plea, after the ship disclosed problems to CSM-D.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Baptist Health, which owns four Jacksonville hospitals, Memorial Hospital, Specialty Hospital, Lake City Medical Center, Orange Park Medical Center, University of Florida Health Jacksonville, and Century Ambulance Service Inc. 

The whistleblower will receive a $1.2 million share of the recovery.

According to the settlement terms, Baptist Health will pay $2.89 million; Memorial Hospital, Specialty Hospital, Lake City Medical Center and Orange Park Medical Center will pay a combined $2.37 million; University of Florida Health Jacksonville will pay $1 million; and Century will pay $1.25 million.

The case, filed in 2011, alleged that the hospitals routinely ordered ambulance transfers via Century that were medically suspect, costing Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program millions in unnecessary billings. Additionally, the complaint claimed that the hospitals routinely ordered life support ambulance transfers that were medically unnecessary. In association with this alleged healthcare fraud, Century was accused of knowingly up-coding claims from basic to advanced life support. Century was also accused of transporting patients unnecessarily and needlessly driving patients to their own homes as if it were an emergency.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against Lockheed Martin Inc who is accused of submitting or causing the submission of false claims and conspired to submit such claims under a contract with the General Services Administration (GSA) in support of the Naval Oceanographic Major Shared Resource Center (NAVO MSRC).

The whistleblower will receive a $560,000 share of the recovery.

The contract in questions was to provide support services for the National Center for Critical Information Processing and Storage (NCCIPS) at the NAVO MSRC at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County, Miss. GSA awarded the NCCIPS task order in April 2004 to Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), which teamed with Lockheed Martin and Applied Enterprise Solutions (AES) to perform under the task order. SAIC was paid a total of $115 million under the contract, of which Lockheed Martin was paid $2 million according to the terms of its subcontract with SAIC.

The case, filed in May 2009, alleged that prior to the issuance, and once the NCCIPS solicitation had been publicized, that then government employees, Stephen Adamec and Robert Knesel, conspired with Lockheed Martin, Galloway, SAIC and AES to ensure that SAIC and its teaming partners were awarded the task order by (a) sharing non public, advance procurement information with the SAIC team that was not provided to other potential bidders; (b) sharing information about the solicitation with the SAIC team before providing that information to other bidders; and choosing a type of contract and putting language in the solicitation in order to bias the selection process to favor the SAIC team.

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against PC Specialists Inc., doing business as Technology Integration Group (TIG), who is accused of inflating prices of computers sold through another company to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The whistleblower's recovery amount has not been determined.

The case was filed in 2014 and alleged that from 2003 to 2013, TIG sold Dell computers to Sandia Corporation for resale to the United States under Sandia’s contract with the NNSA.  The NNSA purchased the computers for use at Sandia National Laboratories.  The United States alleged that TIG knowingly inflated the amounts it charged Sandia by failing to give credits for rebates and discounts it received from Dell as required by its contract and causing false claims to the government for the inflated prices.  

In a separate but related matter, in April 2015, TIG entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of New Mexico regarding allegations that three employees in TIG’s Albuquerque branch office engaged in a scheme to defraud the United States by inflating the amounts it charged Sandia for computers.  The non-prosecution agreement in that matter required TIG to terminate the employment of the three employees in its Albuquerque branch office – a vice president, a senior account executive and an accounts executive – who participated in and profited from the scheme.  The non-prosecution agreement also required TIG to retain and pay for an independent monitor selected by the U.S. Attorney’s Office who is responsible for monitoring TIG’s compliance with the agreement, and TIG policies, procedures and training relating to federal government contracts over the agreement’s three-year term. 

A settlement has been reached in a whistleblower class action lawsuit brought against CDI Corporation who is accused of charging the military for work not actually performed. 

Under the terms of the settlement, the whistleblower will receive $360,750.

The whistleblower cae was originally filed in 2005. The United States alleged that CDI wrongfully charged labor costs to work orders under military aircraft engine contracts for The General Electric Company (GE). The civil investigation examined CDI’s labor and billing records from Jan. 15, 2001, to Dec. 31, 2006. The civil investigation found that during this time period, CDI directed the mischarging of employees’ labor costs to purchase orders that would be reimbursed by the U.S. military. In fact, the employees did not perform the work billed to those military projects. CDI entered these mischarged labor costs in increments of 0.5 hours or less to evade detection.