Qui Tam-False Claims Act

Qui Tam is short for the rather cumbersome qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte sequitur,which translates roughly as he “who brings the action for the king as well as for himself.” You know you’re on hallowed ground when you invoke the king in a modern American court.  A qui tam suit is a whistleblower action against a person or business that has submitted false claims for payment from the federal government, for example by inflating the costs of construction on a military base or filing false Medicare claims.  There are two main reasons to come forward with information like this, and the first one is that Uncle Sam wants you to.  It would cost a lot of money for the government to ferret out these cases, so the government offers incentives for citizens to do the work.

Which brings us to the second reason for blowing the whistle. Anyone with the information to make such a case can bring a qui tam action and share in the recovery, which may be triple the actual damages. If the government picks up the case and prosecutes it successfully, the whistleblower stands to receive 15% to 25% of the award, and the bounty rises to as much as 30% if the government lets the whistblower proceed.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, settlements and judgments in whistleblower qui tam actions amounted to $2.3 billion in recovery for the government just in fiscal year 2010. The whisleblowers, called “relators” in these actions, collected $385 million. Since 1986, when federal law was strengthened to encourage more qui tam actions, the government has collected $18 billion and relators have obtained more than $2.8 billion in awards.

The fact that the Department of Justice advertises such statistics only goes to show how the government values what is the civil equivalent of a citizen’s arrest. Federal law even protects whistleblower s from retaliation by their employers.

At Shipman & Wright, we have experience handing these types of cases and are ready to help advise you in your pursuit.   Please contact us if you would like more information regarding our Qui Tam services and experience.