I’m a trial lawyer for injured people and businesses at The Beasley Firm. Founded in 1958, we have recovered over $2 billion for our clients through hundreds of verdicts and settlements in excess of $1 million. We’re listed in Super Lawyers, Best Lawyers in America, U.S. News’s Top Lawyers, [...]
Supreme Court Term In Review For Consumers, Employees and Injured Persons
It's that time of year again. The United States Supreme Court, the least productive court in the nation, is back on summer recess until October. Let's review what they imposed upon us over the past nine months. I've written before about the problems with the Supreme Court. They change the rules of their own games to reach preferred results. They brush off facts they don't want to deal with. Even if they get things right, they write opinions of minimal use to lower courts, much less practicing attorneys. To add insult to injury, they give out hypocritical and erroneous advice ... Continue Reading
Electronic Health Records Fraud, The New Frontier In False Claims
For nearly a generation, the transition from paper to electronic medical records has been the next big thing in health care. The theoretical benefits are obvious: improved usability, security, and portability of patient records. Even better, the life-saving abilities of medication, surgical, and critical care checklists are well-known, and nobody is better at checking a checklist than a computer. Electronic health records thus could enable software to do everything from cross-check prescribed medications against patient allergies, ensure that appropriate blood labs are drawn in a timely manner to monitor medication levels and recovery conditions, and even draw inferences about the ... Continue Reading
Philadelphia Wins First IRS Tax Fraud Whistleblower Award
It's not easy being a whistleblower; it "ruins your life," as discussed more here. Consequently, if there's no financial incentive to blow the whistle on government fraud, then most everyone who encounters it will just try to distance themselves from it rather than stop it. We're all human. We all have bills to pay and mouths to feed. The IRS learned that the hard way; from 2001 to 2005, its dismal tax fraud program produced an average individual relator reward around $24,000, hardly enough to risk your career over, so in 2006 Congress amended the relevant statute (26 U.S.C. § ... Continue Reading
More False Claims Act Smoke And Mirrors To Deny Whistleblower Awards
Via the WSJ Law Blog, Amy Kolz at The American Lawyer has a new article about the False Claims Act: "[FCA cases] are a big gamble," says Piacentile's counsel, former Boies, Schiller & Flexner partner David Stone of Stone & Magnanini, who cites cost-benefit analyses and good relationships with prosecutors as essential to his qui tam practice. "That's why you have to know what you're doing. Otherwise you can be in a case for ten years and not get anything." But there is a darker perspective on Joseph Piacentile. Unlike most qui tam relators, he doesn't blow the whistle as an ... Continue Reading
Wall Street Law Firms Band Together To Complain About Judge Rakoff – And Are Ignored
Via the Am Law Daily, the Wall Street Journal had an article about an effort by Bank of America's lawyers — at Wachtell, Davis Polk, and Cleary Gottlieb — to keep Judge Jed Rakoff from presiding over a shareholder class action against them: Bank of America Corp. tried to keep cases pending against it from landing with U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff, in the hopes of avoiding another dramatic confrontation with the judge over the bank's handling of the Merrill Lynch & Co. takeover. It got the outcome it wanted, though not necessarily thanks to its efforts. The nation's largest bank ... Continue Reading
Who Will Fight For Our Tired, Our Poor, Our Huddled Masses Yearing To Breathe Free?
The New Colossus: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land to land; Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame. "Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, ... Continue Reading
E.D.Pa. Holds False Claims Act Relator Cannot Toll Statute Of Limitations If Government Did Not Intervene
Another interesting statutory construction case arising from allegations scientists at Cornell University Medical College and Thomas Jefferson University "misrepresented the findings of their DNA research when they applied for National Institute of Health research grants and did not correct the misrepresentations on subsequent progress reports and renewal applications." Problem is, the grants in question were filed back in the 1990s. As Judge Savage recounts, The [False Claims Act] prohibits 'any person from making false or fraudulent claims for payment to the United States.' Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 545 U.S. 409, 411, ... Continue Reading
The Ethics of Internal Corporate Investigations by In-House Counsel
At Legal Ethics Blog, Professor Andrew Perlman posts a hypothetical: I was recently a panelist at the Association of Corporate Counsel's annual conference, and someone in the audience posed an interesting hypothetical. Imagine that in-house counsel is conducting an internal investigation and speaks with an employee whose conduct may have been unlawful. Let me interrupt to point out that the above hypothetical is one of the classical examples used to teach professional responsibility to law students. Employees are frequently confused about the role of the company's lawyers in internal investigations, and frequently do not understand that the lawyer there represents ... Continue Reading
Shareholder Activism and the “Eclipse of the Public Corporation”
Martin Lipton, who knows a thing or two about corporations, presents: On June 25, I presented a paper entitled “Shareholder Activism and the “Eclipse of the Public Corporation”: Is the Current Wave of Activism Causing Another Tectonic Shift in the American Corporate World?” at the 2008 Directors Forum of The University of Minnesota Law School. The paper discusses the pressures that have been pervasively eroding the centrality of the board of directors and transforming its role in the governance structure of public companies, with the end game being a new conception of the corporate organization. Against the backdrop of the ... Continue Reading
