United States ex rel. Bidani v. Lewis,
No 97 C 6502 (N.D.Ill. June 29, 2001)
In
this qui tam suit initiated by a physician ("relator") who had previously
worked for an entity controlled by another physician ("entity") that
sold kidney dialysis supplies, the United States District Court for the Northern
District of Illinois held that the relator's allegations were not required to
meet the "public disclosure/original source" requirement of traditional
qui tam suits, because the information provided by the relator was not publically
disclosed until after the relator provided the information in a related state
court suit. The court granted the relator's motion for reconsideration regarding
his claim that the entity had violated the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute and
the False Claims Act which prohibit knowingly and willfully receiving remuneration
for purchasing covered supplies form a seller.
The entity claimed that its failure to report the discounts (which if unreported, would qualify as remuneration) was the result of its lawyers' failure to inform the entity that it had a duty to report them. The court was convinced that a genuine factual dispute existed as to whether the entity knowingly and willfully violated the Anti-Kickback Statute and the False Claims Act based upon evidence that the entity's lawyers had previously written a legal journal article which had expressly referred to the "need to report the discounts." When confronted with this evidence, the court reinstated the relator's claim and concluded that "[i]t can reasonably be inferred that [the entity was] aware of the remuneration prohibition and that discounts were illegal remuneration absent disclosure."