Advocates for Justice

Balcony and deck collapses are all too common – especially in the Bay Area.  Collapses occur through structural defects as well as through lax and deferred maintenance.  An example is the tragic balcony collapse that occurred at 12:41 a.m. on June 16, 2015 in Berkeley (Bay Area of California), which as of 9:00 a.m. had claimed six lives with many more victims in the hospital with major and life threatening injuries.  Most of the victims of this tragedy were Irish students spending their summer on work visas.  

Niall McCarthy and Eric Buescher recently published a chapter titled “Fighting Financial Elder Abuse in California” for the Thomson Reuters / Astapore Books publication, “Inside the Minds: Elder Law Client Strategies in California.”  The chapter describes the current state of financial elder abuse law in California and discusses strategies for plaintiffs to successfully prosecute civil financial elder abuse cases in a variety of contexts.  

Congratulations to Anne Marie Murphy for being selected by The Daily Journal as one of the Top 100 Women Lawyers in California.

With the mounting costs of higher education, students are increasingly relying on federal financial aid to finance their education. As a result, taxpayer monies are increasingly being advertised and used by higher education institutions, both non-profit and for-profit, to maintain student enrollment. As discussed in an earlier post, for-profit schools must certify they are in compliance with various federal statutes and regulations in order to receive federal financial aid, including: (1) being accredited by an approved agency; (2) that they do not derive at least 10% of their revenues from non-federal sources, known as the 90-10 Rule; (3) that they do not pay recruiters bonuses or other incentives payments based on student enrollments; and (4) that students are making satisfactory progress toward completing their course of study.  

Nanci Nishimura has been selected by the White House to represent the Top 50 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders at a White House Conference on Education and Entrepreneurship of Asian American businesses.

On Monday, May 4, 2015, courts unsealed two health care fraud cases and revealed settlement amounts totaling over $461.5 million. In Carlisle v. Pacific Ambulance et al., Case No. 3:09-cv-02628-L-BLM (S.D. Cal.), whistleblower Kelvin Carlisle alleged that several ambulance companies engaged in an unlawful kickback scheme by providing heavily discounted ambulance services in exchange for exclusive rights to provide services to the hospitals. Carlisle stated that the scheme incentivized hospitals to order excessive and unnecessary medical services and seek reimbursement from Medicare. This case settled for $11.5 million, with Carlisle receiving $1.7 million. 

The United States Department of Justice today announced a $48.5 million settlement of claims against Health Diagnostic Laboratories (“HDL”) and Singulex, Inc., in a False Claims Act case filed by Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy on behalf of a whistleblower in late 2011.  HDL is a Richmond, Virginia-based laboratory that specializes in coronary heart disease testing.  Singulex is a laboratory based in Alameda, California.  CPM prosecuted the case jointly with two other whistleblower actions filed by the law firms of Phillips & Cohen LLP, and Pietragallo Gordon Alfano Bosick & Raspanti, LLP.  CPM was assisted in the case by the Steven N. Berk, of Berk Law PLLC, based in Washington D.C.

California Labor Code §1102.5 protects employees from retaliation when employees report—either internally or to an outside law enforcement agency— employers that violate local, state or federal laws. Under this statute, employees who report unlawful employer activities (“whistleblowers”) are protected from employer retaliation such as discipline, reassignment, salary reduction, demotion, and termination. On November 21, 2014, a California appellate court broadened these whistleblower protections to include employees who were terminated because their employer “mistakenly believed” that the employee engaged in the protected activity of reporting employer misconduct.

Last week, the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (“OIG”) posted an Advisory Opinion addressing several issues of importance in the medical laboratory industry. OIG Advisory Opinions provide useful guidance to industry participants and potential whistleblowers in understanding what categories of conduct cross the line from legitimate business practices to fraud and abuse.  

The False Claims Act can be a powerful tool against for-profit educational institutions that exploit students, and bilk taxpayers. Under the Higher Education Act of 1965 (“HEA”), Congress established various student loan and grant programs, including the Federal Pell Grant Program (“Pell”), the Federal Family Education Loan Program (“FFELP”), and the Federal Direct Loan Program (“FDLP”) in order to financially assist eligible students in obtaining a post-secondary education. These loan and grant programs are only supposed to be offered to students who attend educational institutions that meet strict federal and state requirements. Unfortunately, many for-profit institutions fail to meet those requirements, and conceal that fact to continue receiving federal student loan proceeds. Many schools rely almost entirely on federal student aid to keep their programs running, and are willing to do and say anything, no matter how fraudulent, to keep those funds flowing.