James R. Brickman v. Business Loan Express, LLC

310 F. App'x 322

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
• Decided: February 5, 2009
• Docket: 08-10282
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

James R. Brickman and Greenlight Capital, Inc. (collectively, “Relators”) appeal from the dismissal of their complaint against Business Loan Express, LLC, Pk/a Business Loan Express, Inc.; Business Loan Center, LLC, pk/a Business Loan Center, Inc.; Robert Tannenhauser; Matthew McGee; and George Harrigan (collectively, “BLX”). The complaint, filed under the False Claims Act (“FCA”), 31 U.S.C. § 3729 et seq., alleged that BLX had participated in a secret scheme to defraud the United States Small Business Administration out of tens of millions of dollars.

The district court ruled that the Rela-tors’ claims of fraud were based upon information that had been publicly disclosed or was otherwise publicly available prior to the filing of the action, and thus, the public disclosure bar of the FCA, 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A), deprived it of subject matter jurisdiction to resolve the fraud claims.

We find no reversible error. The uncontested factual record demonstrates that the complaint in this case was derived entirely from information available to any member of the public and that the Rela-tors had no direct, personal knowledge of any of the parties or transactions at issue here.

AFFIRMED.