High Court Sides With Plaintiffs on False Claims Timeliness (1)

The U.S. Supreme Court adopted a plaintiff-friendly False Claims Act standard for timely accusing government contractors and other defendants of defrauding the government May 13.

Allowing a whistleblower to rely on a three-year filing period, even when the government doesn’t intervene in a case, satisfies the FCA’s text, the court ruled in a unanimous decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas.

Under the FCA, a case must be filed within six years of when the violation occurred, or three years after the date when the material facts are known or reasonably should have been known by a relevant government official, but ...