A judge has awarded a landmark $1.1 million in attorney fees to a nursing home targeted in a False Claims case found “frivolous” for its reliance on publicly available and false information.
Senior US District Court Judge Glen Davidson of the Northern District of Mississippi on Thursday ordered attorney-turned-whistleblower Cameron Jehl to pay for the work of attorneys defending Golden LivingCenter – Southaven in a case that dates to 2019.
He characterized Jehl’s allegations against the nursing home as “groundless, frivolous, and [with] no chance of success,” triggering a provision of the False Claims Act that allows wronged providers to recoup costs for legal and other fees.
Davidson in February had rejected Jehl’s request for another hearing on the matter, and his March 14 ruling finalized amounts to be paid to several attorneys and paralegals who worked on the case on behalf of Golden Living and several related parties.
While the judge reduced some billing because he could not glean enough detail about the lawyers’ various activities, he rejected other attempts by Jehl to lower the payouts. In one example, he reduced fees by 20%, versus a 75% requested.
Davidson repeatedly cited the whistleblower’s own actions and their influence on his determination.
“The relator [Jehl] set the tone for this litigation following the allegations against the defendants along wth seeking over $30,000,000.00 in damages. It is therefore reasonable that the defendants, and their counsel, would find the need to investigate and litigate this case fully and extensively,” the judge found.
A warning to others
While it was unclear Tuesday whether the $1.06 million in fees is a record involving a dismissed nursing home False Claims suit, attorneys contacted by McKnight’s Long-Term Care News described the amount as “unique” and a “landmark.”
Two attorneys representing Golden Living, who each stand to collect, did not respond to a request for comment from McKnight’s.
The case could serve as a warning to others who would seek to bring an unsupported suit against healthcare providers, seeking access to tripled rewards under federal law. Skilled nursing providers have long said they spend much-needed funds defending or settling such cases, even when the government doesn’t find enough merit to intervene.
In this particular case, Jehl had previously deposed one of Golden Living’s licensed nurse practitioners in another case. That’s how he discovered, or so he thought, that Southaven had employed that NP when her multistate license was temporarily revoked.
In 2019, Cameron Jehl brought a qui tam action alleging that the NP had been unlicensed for nearly a year and violated federal regulations while serving as the director of nursing services. He claimed the facility had received “millions in reimbursement payments” to which it was not entitled.
By late 2022, two federal courts had found the case unmeritorious, noting a “complete failure of proof on each of the essential elements” of the plaintiff’s claims. Jehl also built part of his purported case using a publicly accessible database. False Claims cases can not be based on public information, as the goal of the program is to elicit information that is otherwise unavailable to the government.
