United States ex rel. Karvelas v. Melrose-Wakefield Hospital
Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.
Status
More on how this was screened
The First Circuit also confined its presentment language to one type of False Claims Act claim and rejected its suggested retaliation causation standard. Its holding that fraud claims require particularized pleading remains applicable.
55 later cases cite United States ex rel. Karvelas v. Melrose-Wakefield Hospital; 55 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.
Relying on United States ex rel. Karvelas v. Melrose-Wakefield Hospital?
This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.
Treatments
Superseded by Statute
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The 2009 False Claims Act amendment displaced Karvelas's employer-notice requirement for retaliation claims based on an employee's effort to stop a violation.
Manfield v. Alutiiq International Solutions, Inc. · District of Maine · filed
FERA’s change in the definition of what constitutes “protected conduct” for purposes of an FCA retaliation claim also changes the definition of what constitutes the employer’s knowledge thereof. Pre-FERA the First Circuit stated: the employer must be on notice that the employee is engaged in conduct that ‘reasonably could lead to a False Claims Act case.’... ‘the kind of knowledge the defendant must have mirrors the kind of activity in which the plaintiff must be engaged.’ ... What the employer must know is that the plaintiff is engaged in protected conduct, that is, investigation or other activity concerning false or fraudulent claims that the employer knowingly presented to the federal government. Karvelas, 360 F.3d at 238-39. Under the new statute, an employer’s knowledge still mirrors the kind of activity in which the plaintiff must be engaged. Since a plaintiff now engages in protected conduct whenever he engages in an effort to stop an FCA violation, the act of internal reporting itself suffices as both the effort to stop the FCA violation and the notice to the employer that the employee is engaging in protected activity.
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Limited
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The First Circuit confined Karvelas's requirement to identify claims actually presented to the government to False Claims Act claims under subsection (a)(1).
United States ex rel. Gagne v. City of Worcester · First Circuit · filed
Allison Engine thus forecloses, in subsection (a)(2) and (a)(3) cases, a broad reading of portions of our Karvelas and Rost holdings. For example, in Karvelas, which involved a subsection (a)(1) claim, we said that "the defendant's presentation of false or fraudulent claims to the government is a central element of every [FCA] case," Karvelas, 360 F.3d at 232 (emphasis added), and that a complaint must "provide details that identify particular false claims for payment that were submitted to the government," id., repeated in Rost, 507 F.3d at 731. That is true only of cases under subsection (a)(1), which expressly includes a presentment requirement.
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The First Circuit treated Karvelas's motivating-factor statement as dictum and required but-for causation for False Claims Act retaliation.
Lestage v. Coloplast Corp. · First Circuit · filed
In 2004, this circuit said in passing, and not in a holding, that an employee making a retaliation claim under the False Claims Act must "show that 'the retaliation was motivated, at least in part, by the employee's engaging in protected activity.'" U.S. ex rel. Karvelas v. Melrose-Wakefield Hosp., 360 F.3d 220, 239 (1st Cir. 2004), abrogated on other grounds by Allison Engine Co. v. U.S. ex rel. Sanders, 553 U.S. 662 (2008) (quoting S. Rep. No. 99-345, at 35, reprinted in 1986 U.S.C.C.A.N. 5266, 5300). ... We agree that given the nearly identical statutory language, retaliation claims under the False Claims act must be evaluated under the but-for causation standard.
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