Qui Tam
“Qui tam”, in short, is a provision in the Federal False Claims Act which encourages private citizens, such as you, represented by qui tam counsel, such as us, to file sealed lawsuits in federal court seeking recovery of Government money obtained by fraud or more specifically, false claims. It is an incredibly powerful law both in its inclusion of the private citizen and their counsel, and the rights it affords the private citizen as a whistleblower litigant, including its checks and balances against government inaction.
The term “qui tam” is derived from the Latin adage qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur, meaning “he who pursues this action on our Lord the King’s behalf as well as his own.” Qui tam lawsuits extend back to 69 AD when the Anglo Saxon King Wihtred of Kent issued a decree prohibiting labor on the Sabbath, which included a provision that “if a freeman works during the forbidden time between sunset on Saturday evening and sunset on Sunday evening, he shall forfeit his healsfang, and the man who informs against him shall have half the fine, and the profits arising from the labour.” This notion of reward for reporting misdemeanor constituted one of the first qui tam acts. In the 11th century, King Henry I expressed qui tam sentiments when he brought the judicial process to a local level, reasoning, “each man is to be judged by his peers of the same neighborhood.”
Centuries later, America’s first Continental Congress borrowed the term “qui tam,” yet it took nearly another century for the act to truly receive congressional recognition. The False Claims Act, also referred to as the “Lincoln Act,” “Informer’s Act,” or the “Qui Tam Statute,” was first developed by Congress in 1863. In its American conception, the law aimed to prevent government contractors from supplying faulty equipment to the Union Army in the Civil War. The Act found a particularly strong advocate in then-president Abraham Lincoln. A former lawyer, Lincoln was acutely aware of the necessity for regulation: “Worse than traitors in arms are the men who pretend loyalty to the flag, feast and fatten on the misfortunes of the nation while patriotic blood is crimsoning the plains of the south and their countrymen are moldering in the dust.” Or perhaps Ohio Senator John Sherman said it best when he observed that the problem of the Civil War was “not men, but money”.
The 1863 Congress created the original False Claims Act by combining “Lincoln’s Law” with the already existing financial rewards for reporting corruption. In its initial form, the False Claims Act established the “tripartite framework” of values that underlie current qui tam suits: 1) the use of citizens to discover and expose fraud 2) activation and advancement of cases to prosecution 3) the addition of the relator’s resources to the fraud action.
While Lincoln and his colleagues established a strong foundation for the Act, their efforts were not long lasting. In 1943 a series of amendments established certain restrictions concerning the original provisions of the False Claims Act. By 1986, Congress and the public had become outraged at the government’s continued neglect of fraud, particularly in the defense industry. The law was subsequently amended, with aims to encourage citizens to expose fraud as qui tam relators. Specifically, the law increased available whistleblower rewards in qui tam lawsuits and provided much-needed whistleblower protection. The 1986 amendment worked: qui tam lawsuits increased annually and eventually leveled off, likely due to their efficacy.
While qui tam practices have remained unchanged since 1986, recent years have brought efforts at destabilization from industries threatened by the False Claims Act and its qui tam provisions. Nolan & Auerbach, P.A. moreover, is at the forefront of the False Claims Act’s defense. Legislative efforts have failed and the United States Supreme Court has, both recently and historically, given due credence to the integral role of qui tam lawsuit rewards in rooting out corruption. Healthcare fraud (Medicare fraud, Medicaid fraud) is the most common subject matter of cases since the 1990’s.
Healthcare fraud whistleblowers who need a qui tam attorney or whistleblower lawyer can contact Nolan & Auerbach, P.A. Our qui tam attorneys provide experienced legal representation to Healthcare fraud whistleblowers under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.
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