Home/Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation/In Re Cardiac Devices Qui Tam Litigation

In Re Cardiac Devices Qui Tam Litigation

254 F. Supp. 2d 1370, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3448, 2003 WL 1089640
CourtUnited States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation
DecidedMarch 5, 2003
Docket1505
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 254 F. Supp. 2d 1370 (In Re Cardiac Devices Qui Tam Litigation) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
In Re Cardiac Devices Qui Tam Litigation, 254 F. Supp. 2d 1370, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3448, 2003 WL 1089640 (jpml 2003).

Opinion

TRANSFER ORDER

WM. TERRELL HODGES, Chairman.

This litigation consists at the present time of the 35 actions listed on the attached Schedule A and pending in 25 districts as follows: three actions each in the Central District of California and the Eastern District of Michigan; two actions each in the Northern District of Georgia, the Northern District of Illinois, the Southern District of Indiana, the District of Massachusetts, the Eastern District of Missouri, and the Northern District of Texas; and one action each in the Northern District of California, the District of Connecticut, the District of District of Columbia, the Middle District of Florida, the District of Maryland, the Eastern and Southern Districts of New York, the Middle District of North Carolina, the Northern District of Ohio, the District of Oregon, the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the Middle and Western Districts of Tennessee, the Eastern District of Virginia, the Eastern and Western Districts of Washington, and the Eastern District of Wisconsin. 1 These actions are all qui tam actions brought principally for violations of the federal False Claims Act against hospital defendants that allegedly have knowingly submitted false claims to various governmental health care programs. 2 Now before the Panel is a motion, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407, brought by i) Kevin Co-sens, the individual who is the relator in all *1372 actions, and ii) plaintiff United States (which has opted to intervene in all but one of the actions). Movants seek to centralize this litigation in the Western District of Washington. All defendants have responded in opposition to centralization.

On the basis of the papers filed and hearing session held, the Panel finds that the actions in this litigation involve common questions of fact, and that centralization under Section 1407 in the District of Connecticut will serve the convenience of the parties and witnesses and promote the just and efficient conduct of the litigation. All actions before the Panel were originally part of a single qui tam action filed against 132 hospital defendants by relator Cosens in the Western District of Washington in March 1994. 3 Each defendant was accused of submitting, between 1986 and 1994, false claims for payment to federal health insurance programs for procedures performed using various cardiac devices which had not received final Food and Drug Administration approval for marketing. Among other things, these actions can be expected to share factual and legal questions concerning i) the common relator’s status as an “original source,” ii) defenses that the claims are impermissibly based on prior “public disclosures,” iii) the United States conduct in investigating and prosecuting the claims since the 1994 filing of the Western District of Washington action, iv) the various cardiac devices at issue that were used by more than one hospital, and v) the validity and applicability of the governing federal health care regulations and provisions. We thus conclude that centralization under Section 1407 is necessary to eliminate duplicative discovery, prevent inconsistent pretrial rulings, and conserve the resources of the parties, their counsel and the judiciary. To those parties opposing transfer on the basis of insufficient common questions, we accept that distinctions among the actions may prove to be such that certain actions or claims therein can be ready for remand in advance of other claims or actions. In that event, we point out that whenever the transferee judge deems remand of any claims or actions appropriate, procedures are available whereby this may be accomplished with a minimum of delay. See Rule 7.6, R.P.J.P.M.L., 199 F.R.D. 424, 436-438 (2001). In the meantime, transfer under Section 1407 will offer the benefit of placing all actions in this docket before a single judge who can structure pretrial proceedings to consider all parties’ legitimate discovery needs while ensuring that common parties and witnesses are not subjected to discovery demands which duplicate activity that will occur or has already occurred in other actions. We note also that Section 1407 transfer has the additional salutary effect of placing the actions before one judge who can formulate a pretrial program that: i) allows discovery with respect to any non-common issues to proceed concurrently with remaining discovery on common issues, In re Smith Patent Litigation, 407 F.Supp. 1403, 1404 (J.P.M.L.1976); and ii) ensures that pretrial proceedings will be conducted in a manner leading to the just and expeditious resolution of all actions to the overall benefit of the parties.

Given the range of locations of parties and witnesses in this docket and the geo *1373 graphic dispersal of current and anticipated constituent actions, it is clear that a wide array of suitable transferee districts exists. In concluding that the District Connecticut is an appropriate forum for this docket, we note that most of the parties in this litigation are in the eastern part of the United States, and thus the Connecticut district will prove to be convenient for many of the litigants. Furthermore, centralization in the Connecticut forum permits the Panel to assign this litigation to i) a court presently equipped with the resources that this complex docket is likely to require, and ii) an available transferee judge who, as a result of his currently presiding over other litigation involving the validity of the core government regulations involved in MDL-1505, has already developed a familiarity and expertise with the underlying issues presented in this litigation.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1407, the actions listed on the attached Schedule A and pending outside the District of Connecticut are transferred to the District of Connecticut and, with the consent of that court, assigned to the Honorable Gerard L. Goet-tel for coordinated or consolidated pretrial proceedings with the action pending in that district and listed on Schedule A.

SCHEDULE A

MDL-1505 — In re Cardiac Devices Qui Tam Litigation

Central District of California

United States ex rel. Kevin D. Cosens, et al. v. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, C.A. No. 2:02-3264

United States ex rel. Kevin D. Cosens, et al. v. Hospital of Good Samaritan, C.A. No. 2:02-6152

United States ex rel. Kevin D. Cosens, et al. v. Loma Linda University Medical Center, C.A. No. 2:02-6153

Northern District of California

United States ex rel. Kevin D. Cosens, et al. v. Stanford University, C.A. No. 3:99-4121

District of Connecticut

United States ex rel. Kevin D. Cosens, et al. v. Yale-New Haven Hospital, C.A. No. 3:02-688

District of District of Columbia

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

In Re Kaplan Higher Education Corp. Qui Tam Litigation
626 F. Supp. 2d 1323 (Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, 2009)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
254 F. Supp. 2d 1370, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3448, 2003 WL 1089640, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/in-re-cardiac-devices-qui-tam-litigation-jpml-2003.