A qui tam legal action is any action brought by a person against a government contractor that the individual suspects, or knows, is committing an act of fraud against the government. The federal and state qui tam provisions allow private citizens to file fraud charges, and bring suit, in the name of the government, against government contractors, and others who receive government funds. The qui tam provision allows the person pursuing the action to share in any money recovered. Whistleblower cases often relate to medicare fraud, but can apply to any contractor.
Types of possible qui tam actions include government contractors engaging in one or more of the following:
• Double billing
• Overcharging and/or upcoding
• Delivering poor quality products
• Nonconformance to contract specifications
The Krislov firm has also recovered funds for the government, due to governmental fraud, abuse and mismanagement. Representative cases include:
(a) County of Cook ex rel. Rifkin v. Bear Stearns, 215 Ill.2d 466 (2005); Scachitti v. UBS Financial Services, 215 Ill.2d 484 (2005); and City of Chicago ex rel. Scachitti v. Prudential Securities, 332 Ill. App.3d 353 (Ill App. 2002) petition for leave to appeal denied, (establishing constitutionality of whistleblower actions against underwriters “yield burning”, i.e. overcharging municipalities on refinancing government debt litigation, established ability of whistleblowers to employ “nullum tempus” doctrine eliminating ordinary limitations periods on claims for government entities).
(b) Ryan v. Cosentino, 776 F. Supp. 386 (N.D. Ill. 1991), 793 F. Supp. 822 (N.D. Ill. 1992) and 1995 WL 516603 (N.D. Ill. August 24, 1995) ($14 million judgment obtained for corrupt loans to public officials in exchange for deposits of State monies without interest); and McKay v. Kusper, 252 Ill. App. 3d 450 (1993).
We also have pursued several qui tam/whistleblower type actions, including:
(c) U.S. ex rel. Chovanec v. Apria Healthcare Group, Inc., 606 F.3d 361 (7th Cir. 2010)
(d) U.S. ex rel. Kennedy, et al. V. Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 512 F.Supp.2d 1158 (N.D. Ill. 2007)
(e) Thulis and Webb v. City of Chicago, 2019 CH 9581 (Circuit Ct. Cook County); pending litigation in which we uncovered decades of 22,000 uncashed City checks totaling more than $11 million, concealed by City’s noncompliance with State law which would have made the items findable on State’s iCash website.
and have multiple pending cases currently under seal.