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."