United States Ex Rel. Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys, Inc. v. Baxter Healthcare Corp.

BARRON, Circuit Judge.

This appeal involves a lawsuit against a pharmaceutical company for allegedly defrauding the federal Medicaid and Medicare programs. The suit is based on the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3733, an unusual federal statute that allows private parties, called “relators,” to stand in for the United States and bring what are known as qui tam actions. 1 Because qui tam actions let private individuals recover damages for wrongs done to the United States, a special threshold bar — the “first-to-file” rule — sometimes stands in their way. It is that bar that is in dispute…