United States Ninth Circuit

In this qui tam action brought by plaintiff Chapter 11 debtors under the False Claims Act against a former bankruptcy trustee, dismissal on the basis that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction because the Act’s "public disclosure" bar applied is affirmed, where: 1) alleged kickback scheme transactions involving the trustee were publicly disclosed during a deposition taken by the Office of the United States Trustee as part of its administrative investigation of the trustee; and 2) plaintiffs were outsiders to the investigation and were not original sources of the kickback scheme allegations because they did not have independent knowledge of this information.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/29/2014
• Published 10/29/2014

Judges

• Watford

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel