United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
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No. 09-3439
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United States of America, ex rel. *
J. Russell Hixson; United States *
of America ex rel Terrence D. Brown, *
*
Appellants, *
* Appeal from the United States
v. * District Court for the Southern
* District of Iowa.
Health Management Systems, Inc.; *
ACS State Healthcare, LLC, formerly *
known as Consultec, Inc.; Kevin *
Concannon; Eugene L. Gessow, *
*
Appellees. *
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Submitted: June 16, 2010
Filed: July 30, 2010
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Before LOKEN, ARNOLD, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.
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ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
Attorneys J. Russell Hixson and Terrence Brown filed this qui tam1 action on
behalf of the United States against Health Management Services (HMS) and ACS
State Healthcare, two companies that contracted to perform work for Iowa's Medicaid
program, and against two employees of the Iowa Department of Health Services. The
relators claimed that the defendants violated the False Claims Act (FCA), see
31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3733, by obtaining federal funds to pay for medical care resulting
from medical negligence without seeking reimbursement from the tortfeasors as
federal law requires. The defendants moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter
jurisdiction, or, in the alternative, for failure to state a claim. See Fed. R. Civ. P.
12(b)(1), (6). The district court2 rejected the defendants' jurisdictional argument but
dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. United States ex rel. Hixson v.
Health Management Sys., Inc., 657 F. Supp. 2d 1039 (S.D. Iowa 2009). Relators
appeal and we affirm.
I.
The district court relied on undisputed facts in concluding that it had subject
matter jurisdiction, and thus we review de novo its application of the law to those
facts. See Johnson v. United States, 534 F.3d 958, 962 (8th Cir. 2008).
The FCA allows qui tam relators to recover from persons who make false or
fraudulent claims against the United States, but provides that no court has jurisdiction
if the action is based on "allegations or transactions" that have already been publicly
disclosed in an administrative hearing unless the person who brings the action is an
"original source." 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A) (2008). We have explained that the
1
"Qui tam is short for 'qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hac parte
sequitur,' which means 'who pursues this action on our Lord the King's behalf as well
as his own.' " Rockwell Int'l Corp. v. United States, 549 U.S. 457, 463 n.2 (2007).
2
The Honorable John A. Jarvey, United States District Judge for the Southern
District of Iowa.
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jurisdictional bar to an FCA claim exists only "when the essential elements
comprising [the] fraudulent transaction have been publicly disclosed so as to raise a
reasonable inference of fraud"; to bar the action, the disclosure must reveal the
" 'critical elements of the fraudulent transaction themselves.' " United States ex rel.
Rabushka v. Crane Co., 40 F.3d 1509, 1512-14 (8th Cir. 1994) (quoting United States
ex rel. Springfield Terminal Ry. v. Quinn, 14 F.3d 645, 654 (D.C. Cir.1994)), cert.
denied, 515 U.S. 1142 (1995).
Here the defendants rely on disclosures in state3 administrative documents
showing that the defendants did not pursue reimbursement of Medicaid funds from
tortfeasors in medical malpractice cases. We conclude that these documents do not
disclose the "essential elements" of what the relators sought to prove. See Rabushka,
40 F.3d at 1514. In addition to showing that the defendants failed to seek
reimbursement, the relators had to show that the defendants participated in claiming
federal funds without deducting the money that they should have obtained from the
tortfeasors. Because the administrative documents that the defendants relied on did
not disclose this essential element – the false claim itself – we cannot say that their
claims were "based upon ... public disclosure of allegations or transactions" under the
FCA. See 42 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A) (2008). The district court therefore had subject
matter jurisdiction over the case and we need not decide whether either relator is an
"original source."
3
We recognize that Congress recently amended § 3730(e)(4) to limit the source
of disclosures to federal (not state or local) administrative proceedings, but the
amendment is not retroactive and thus has no application here. Graham County Soil
& Water Cons. Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 130 S. Ct. 1396, 1400 n.1 (2010);
see Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, 901-
02 (March 23, 2010).
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II.
We review de novo the district court's order granting the motion to dismiss,
accepting the allegations contained in the complaint as true and drawing all reasonable
inferences in the relators' favor. United States ex rel. Joshi v. St. Luke's Hosp., Inc.,
441 F.3d 552, 555 (8th Cir. 2006), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 881 (2006). The relators
claim that the defendants violated the FCA by knowingly presenting or causing to be
presented false or fraudulent claims to the United States; knowingly making, using,
or causing to be made or used, a false record or statement material to false or
fraudulent claims; or conspiring to commit either of these violations. See 31 U.S.C.
§ 3729(a)(1)(A), (B), (C).
States that elect to participate in Medicaid by providing certain medical care
and services to needy persons receive a portion of their funding from the federal
government and, in return, must meet certain federal requirements. See Harris v.
McRae, 448 U.S. 297, 301 (1980). Federal law requires each participating state to
"ascertain the legal liability of third parties ... to pay for [an individual benefits
recipient's] care and services available under" the state's Medicaid plan and to "seek
reimbursement for [medical] assistance to the extent of such legal liability." 42 U.S.C.
§ 1396a(a)(25); Arkansas Dep't. of Health & Human Servs. v. Ahlborn, 547 U.S. 268,
275-76 (2006). The relators contend that the defendants failed to comply with §
1396a(a)(25) and agree with the district court's characterization of their legal theory:
When the defendants submit, or cause to be submitted, claims for federal Medicaid
funds, without deducting overpayments resulting from the defendants' failure to
comply with the requirement that they seek reimbursement for treatment expenses
necessitated by medical negligence, they are submitting false claims under the FCA.
See Hixson, 657 F. Supp. 2d at 1045.
A.
The defendants argue that they did not seek reimbursement in medical
malpractice cases because Iowa Code § 147.136 precluded Medicaid recipients from
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recovering those costs, and Medicaid's right to reimbursement is wholly dependent on
the recovery right of its recipient. According to the Iowa Supreme Court, the state
legislature passed § 147.136 to eliminate the collateral-source rule in medical
malpractice cases, in the hopes of decreasing malpractice premiums and making health
care more affordable. See Heine v. Allen Memorial Hosp. Corp., 549 N.W.2d 821,
823-24 (Iowa 1996). (Under the collateral source rule, a plaintiff's damages in a tort
action are not reduced by benefits received from a source "wholly independent of and
collateral to" the tortfeasor. Id. (internal citation omitted)).
Section 147.136 provides that in actions against medical care providers based
on medical negligence, "the damages awarded shall not include actual economic
losses incurred ... by the claimant by reason of the personal injury, including but not
limited to, the cost of reasonable and necessary medical care, ... to the extent that those
losses are replaced or are indemnified ... by governmental ... benefit programs or from
any other source except the assets of the claimant or of the members of the claimant's
immediate family." Thus the defendant in a medical malpractice case is not liable to
the plaintiff for medical expenses if they have been "replaced" by another source, such
as a government program. The defendants say that they determined that Medicaid
benefits replaced the medical costs incurred by a Medicaid recipient and so § 147.136
precluded Medicaid recipients from recovering those costs in a medical malpractice
action. Under this reading of the statute, the Medicaid beneficiary, who must assign
his or her rights to recovery of costs paid by Medicaid to the state Medicaid program,
see 42 U.S.C. § 1396k(a)(1), would have nothing to assign in a medical malpractice
case in Iowa. The defendants therefore concluded that they had no basis for pursuing
reimbursement.
The Iowa Supreme Court has not specifically been asked to determine whether
§ 147.136 applies to Medicaid payments. We think, however, that the court's opinion
on a closely related issue indicates that Medicaid is merely another "collateral source"
under § 147.136. See Peters ex. rel. Peters v. Vander Kooi, 494 N.W.2d 708, 714
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(Iowa 1993). In a section titled, "Evidence of Collateral Source Benefits," the Peters
court observed that the defendants had presented evidence at the medical malpractice
trial that "collateral source payments" might be available to the plaintiffs from various
listed sources, including Medicaid. After determining that § 147.136 was "[a]t issue,"
the court agreed with the plaintiffs that the jury instructions should have explained
that the defendants had to show that the plaintiffs could actually obtain a particular
"collateral source amount[]" before that amount could be deducted from their
damages. In an unpublished opinion, the Iowa Court of Appeals has described Peters
as "finding it was permissible under section 147.136 to present evidence of Medicaid
benefits to allow jury to make determination of recovery in light [of] collateral source
payments." Mohammed v. Otoadese, No. 05-1670, 2006 WL 3313770, at *3 (Iowa
Ct. App. Nov. 16, 2006) (unpublished), vacated on other grounds, 738 N.W.2d 628
(Iowa 2007). Although the relators rely heavily on a trial-court decision that refused
to apply § 147.136 to preclude recovery of Medicaid costs, the case, of course, has no
precedential value. In addition, the case involved recovery from a Medicaid
recipient's estate, which federal law specifically permits in some cases following the
recipient's death, see 42 U.S.C.A. § 1396p(b), a circumstance not at issue here. And
we see no merit in the relators' contention that the defendants are somehow bound by
an interpretation of § 147.136 that the State of Iowa relied on in that trial-court case
against a Medicaid recipient's estate.
But we need not decide whether the defendants correctly interpreted § 147.136
since a statement that a defendant makes based on a reasonable interpretation of a
statute cannot support a claim under the FCA if there is no authoritative contrary
interpretation of that statute. That is because the defendant in such a case could not
have acted with the knowledge that the FCA requires before liability can attach. See
31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(1). As the D.C. Circuit noted in United States ex rel. Siewick v.
Jamieson Sci. & Eng'g, Inc., 214 F.3d 1372, 1378, 341 U.S. App. D.C. 459, 465 (D.C.
Cir. 2000), "it is hard to see how [the relators] could ... have satisfied even the loosest
standard of knowledge [under the FCA], i.e., acting 'in reckless disregard of the truth
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or falsity of the information,' " when the relevant legal question was unresolved. Id.
(quoting 31 U.S.C. § 3729(b)(1)(iii)); cf. Safeco Ins. v. Burr, 551 U.S. 47, 70 n.20
(2007). And we agree with the Ninth Circuit's holding that a defendant does not act
with the requisite deliberate ignorance or reckless disregard by "tak[ing] advantage
of a disputed legal question." Hagood v. Sonoma County Water Agency, 81 F.3d
1465, 1478 (9th Cir. 1996) (internal quotation omitted).
Because the plain language of § 147.136 and the legislature's apparent intent
quite evidently at the very least support a conclusion that a plaintiff in a medical
malpractice case cannot recover costs already paid by the government, the defendant's
interpretation of the applicable law is a reasonable interpretation, perhaps even the
most reasonable one. As we have said, the relators based their allegation that the
statements and the claims made to the government were false on a legal conclusion
that federal law required the defendants to seek reimbursement from tortfeasors in
medical malpractice cases. Because there is a reasonable interpretation of the law that
does not obligate the defendants to seek reimbursement, we hold that the relators have
not stated a claim under the FCA.
The relators maintain that another state statute, Iowa Code § 249A.6, required
the defendants to assert a Medicaid lien "upon all monetary claims which the recipient
may have against" medically negligent tortfeasors. Iowa Code § 249.6.2. But the
statute actually provides that the state has a lien against "third parties," id., and the
statute defines the term "third parties" as a person or entity "which is or may be liable"
to pay that recipient's medical costs, Iowa Code § 249.6.6. As the Iowa Supreme
Court explained in a slightly different context, § 249A.6 is intended "to permit the
State to enforce its right of subrogation against persons who were legally liable to a
recipient for medical expenses incurred under [the state Medicaid program]." State
ex rel. Miller v. Phillip Morris Inc., 577 N.W.2d 401, 405 (Iowa 1998) (emphasis
added). Because we have already concluded that medically negligent tortfeasors have
no liability for medical costs paid by Medicaid under a reasonable interpretation of
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§ 147.136, it follows that these tortfeasors are not third parties under § 249.6 (and
certainly this interpretation is reasonable). Therefore we do not believe that § 249A.6
required the defendants to file a lien, and that statute does not assist the relators in
making out a claim in this case.
B.
The relators argue, in the alternative, that if § 147.136 prohibits the recovery
of Medicaid costs in medical malpractice cases, that statute is preempted by federal
law because Congress intended Medicaid to be the "payor of last resort" for a
recipient's medical bills. See Norwest Bank of North Dakota, N.A. v. Doth, 159 F.3d
328, 333 (8th Cir. 1998); see also 42 U.S.C. § 1396k. We note, however, that the
Supreme Court in Ahlborn, after recognizing "that Congress, in crafting the Medicaid
legislation, intended that Medicaid be a 'payer of last resort,' " held that the plain
language of the statute must be followed, even if that language limited the state's right
to recovery and might appear inconsistent with that intent. Ahlborn, 547 U.S. at
291-92 (quoting S. Rep. No. 99-146, p. 313 (1985)).
But we do not believe that it matters in the present context whether the statute
is actually preempted: As we have said, to prevail here the relators must show that
there is no reasonable interpretation of the law that would make the allegedly false
statement true – in this case, that the defendants could have no reasonable basis to
believe that they could not obtain reimbursement in medical malpractice cases.
Therefore, to succeed on their preemption theory the relators would have to show that
the defendants could not reasonably believe that § 147.136 was not preempted.
Understandably, the relators do not even assert that they have made such a showing.
Because we think that the defendants had good reason to rely on § 147.136, the
relators' preemption argument cannot support an FCA claim.
We affirm the judgment of the district court.
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