Tennessee Employment Lawyer Blog

Recently a federal jury awarded former biotech scientist Becky McClain $1.7 million in damages after finding that Pfizer terminated her employment after she became sick with a bioengineered virus and then complained about safety issues. While the actual complaint of contracting the paralyzing virus through workplace safety inadequacies was dismissed by a judge due to lack of evidence, the jury did find that Pfizer violated whistleblower and free speech laws when it fired her.

Many workers' advocates have long pressed for better regulation and safer conditions in biotech facilities fearing just this sort of event. Ms. McClain claimed was stonewalled repeatedly when she tried to get the genetic code for the virus being told it was a trade secret.

According to consumer advocate Ralph Nader, "It's a field that has been trade-secreted out of the sunlight." Nader has taken an interest in the case and has spoken numerous time with McClain. She spoke of situations where desks were right next to biological experiments being conducted and other safety problems.

McClain now suffers from a debilitating illness of partial temporary paralysis caused by a severe potassium deficiency. She believes she contracted this virus from a coworker's experiment. This case has caused OSHA to reevaluate and improve regulations concerning biotech materials.

Continue reading "$1.7M Awarded to Injured Biotech Whistleblower" »

In most cases here in Tennessee and across the country, when someone owes money for a debt, they have to pay the debt collector. However, in some cases like this one, the debt collectors’ conduct may be abusive or in violation of the law and in this leads to the debt collector actually owing the original debt the money instead of the other way around.

In this case, Allen Jones from Lewisville, Texas claimed being harassed by phone calls from the employees at the Advanced Call Center Technologies or “ACT” in 2007. The claim stated that ACT employees were trying to collect on credit card debt and they reportedly used racial remarks in voice messages to Jones. Then Jones and his attorneys used these saved messages to sue ACT.

The attorney for ACT, Dean Siotos, said the voicemails are not representative of how the company normally operates and says the calls must have been in some personal attack that was unrelated to the business. The two employees who allegedly left these messages, no longer work for ACT.

After a trial, the jury found that the company violated Texas collection rules and awarded Allen Jones $50,000 for mental anguish, $143,000 in attorney fees, and 1.5 million in additional damages. At this time, there is no information of an appeal by ACT.

Unfortunately, even with rules and guidelines and laws to help protect people in debt from these kinds of practices, calls like these happen every day, even to the residents of Tennessee. If you or someone you care about has been harassed or mistreated by debt collectors or their agencies, it is important that you contact one of our experienced Tennessee Debt Collection Claims Attorney right away. It is also a good idea to keep any evidence of the violation and show it to one of our attorneys. We will help make sure your rights are heard and that you get the compensation you deserve, for the treatment you have suffered.
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In recent qui tam law news, more health care providers have agreed to return moneys and pay fines for allegedly inappropriately billing Uncle Sam. U.S. taxpayers have the brave employees who blew the whistle and filed qui tam lawsuits against their employers to thank for reporting this corporate misconduct. In previous Tennessee Qui Tam Law Blogs, we have covered pharmaceutical companies that fraudulently bill government health care programs and medical institutions charging Medicare for unnecessary medications.

In one lawsuit initiated by whistleblower employees settled earlier this week, kickbacks using Medicare and Medicaid moneys were alleged by federal prosecutors in the False Claims lawsuit. Christiana Care Health System agreed to pay the United States and Delaware a combined $3.3M to resolve allegations of paying kickbacks to a Delaware neurology firm. In another qui tam lawsuit, a $14M settlement was reached between Feds and two Atlanta-based nursing home chains accused of kicking patients over to a Kentucky-based pharmaceutical firm.

Continue reading "Hospital Kickbacks Basis of Settled False Claims Lawsuits" »

Apollo Group, Inc., the company best known for its subsidiary University of Phoenix, resolved a whistleblower lawsuit earlier this month originally filed in 2003. The online university's parent company has agreed to pay $78.5M to settle the whistleblower lawsuit.

This qui tam lawsuit is doubly unique: first, it was pursued by a private relator after the U.S. Department of Justice did not join the lawsuit and, secondly, in that the defendant was not guilty of fraudulent Medicare charges or a military contractor but, rather an institute of higher education.

Continue reading "College Settles False Claims (Qui Tam) Lawsuit " »

Over $1 billion of U.S. taxpayer money was defrauded by Public Warehousing Co. (PWC) according to recent whistleblower lawsuits now being pursued by the Department of Justice. According to one lawsuit filed under U.S. qui tam provisions, the Kuwait-based company, which has been doing business as Agility since 2006, knowingly through a series of schemes overcharged the U.S. government.

As the principal food supplier to the U.S. military in Iraq, PWC filed false invoices and failed to pass discounts along to the federal government. Monday, the Department of Defense suspended PWC’s ability to receive new government contracts, although the company’s present multibillion food contracts will continue to be honored.

Continue reading "Qui Tam Lawsuit News
Massive Fraudulent Billing Overcharges to Military for Food" »

In Tennessee the answer is no; An employer may not discharge or terminate an employee for refusing to participate in or remain silent about illegal activities.

In Tennessee, the general rule is that most employees may be fired at any time—for any reason or for no reason at all—under what is known as the at-will employment doctrine. However, Tennessee recognizes a public policy exception to the at-will employment doctrine. An employer may not discharge an employee in a manner that violates a clear public policy. An employee has a cause of action—in other words, the employee may sue—for retaliatory discharge when the motivation for the discharge violates public policy.

In order to be succesfull on a claim for retaliatory discharge and employee must show the following:

(1) that an employment at will relationship existed;
(2) that the employee was discharged;
(3) that the reason for the discharge was that the employee attempted to exercise a statutory or constitutional right, or for any other reason which violates clear public policy, including refusing to participate in or remain silent about illegal activites; and
(4) that a substantial factor in the employer's decision to discharge the employee was the employee's exercise of protected rights or compliance with clear public policy.
If an employer is found liable for the retaliatory discharge of one of their employees, the employer may be liable for all actual damages suffered by the employee as well as punitive damages.

In addition to suing an employer for retaliatory discharge, Tennessee has enacted the Tennessee Public Protection Act. This act clearly states “No employee shall be discharged or terminated solely for refusing to participate in, or for refusing to remain silent about, illegal activities”. Note the language is different under the statute than in the retaliatory discharge claim in that to prevail under this statute; an employee must be able to prove they were discharged solely for refusing to participate in, or refusing to remain silent rather than the action playing only a substantial factor in the termination. Should an employee prevail under this statute, they would be entitled to recover their actual damages as well as attorney fees and the costs of the lawsuit.

Continue reading "Can I be fired for refusing to participate in or remain silent about illegal activities?" »

The Department of Justice is to receive a settlement of $8.3M thanks to qui tam whistleblowers. And to show its thanks, per the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act, the two employees who reported the hospital's Medicare fraud (called "relators") will receive up to 15-25% of these recoveries, or approximately $1.4 million.

The whistleblower lawsuit alleges these hospitals based certain healthcare decisions on financial gain rather than medical reasons when treating Medicare patients. This allowed the hospitals to deliberately overcharge the government, through Medicare, for routine, minimally-invasive back surgery.

From 2000 to 2008, according to the whistleblower lawsuit, Medicare patients who went in for kyphoplasty, a kind of spinal surgery to treat certain spinal compression fractures, were unnecessarily kept at the hospital overnight and billed as inpatient to boost the hospitals' revenues. According to whistleblowers in the government lawsuit, kyphoplasty is a minimally invasive surgery that can safely be performed as an outpatient procedure in most cases. A few hours of successful surgery, patients are capable of walking unassisted. Rather than save taxpayers money, these six hospitals, according to the qui tam lawsuit, profited by thousands of dollars, and U.S. taxpayers bilked by thousands of dollars, each time Medicare was fraudulently billed for what amounts to unnecessary inpatient surgery.

The breakdown of the $8.3 million for fraudulent Medicare billing is as follows:

Continue reading "Whistleblowers Reveal Medicare Fraud in 6 Hospitals" »

In light of the new Steven Soderbergh movie The Informant! starring Matt Damon as real-life (though no role model) corporate whistleblower Mark Whitacre, I’d like to revisit a topic I’ve blogged about on our sister Tennessee Law Blog for my contribution to this week’s Tennessee Employment Law Blog, that workplace law topic being TN qui tam (whistleblower) lawsuits.

The False Claims Act’s qui tam provision goes back to the Civil War when Abraham Lincoln saw the Union being bled to death by government contractors audaciously bilking the government. President Lincoln saw this theft of tax dollars as a national threat, understanding that these financial hemorrhages could cost them the war. What the qui tam provision allows, both under federal and Tennessee False Claims Act laws, is for the whistleblower to share in the portion of the moneys the government recovers. In federal funds fraud cases, that can be up to 30% of the total damages. In Tennessee whistleblower cases, that can be up to 33%.

Continue reading "Whistleblowers Protected and Rewarded for Right Actions by False Claims Act " »