United States ex rel. Finks v. Huda

205 F.R.D. 225, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22124, 2001 WL 1700737
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. Illinois
DecidedMay 15, 2001
DocketNo. 99-CV-108-WDS
StatusPublished

This text of 205 F.R.D. 225 (United States ex rel. Finks v. Huda) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. Illinois primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States ex rel. Finks v. Huda, 205 F.R.D. 225, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22124, 2001 WL 1700737 (S.D. Ill. 2001).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

STIEHL, District Judge.

Before the Court are defendant Sanjeev Lele, M.D.’s motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, and motion to sever. Also before the Court is defendant Kirk Morey, M.D.’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, or in the alternative, to dismiss or transfer for improper venue. Appropriate responses have been filed by plaintiffs, and replies by defendants.

BACKGROUND

On February 11, 1999, plaintiffs filed this qua tam action under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. § 3729, et seq., against defendants Nurul Huda, M.D., Malaz Safi, M.D., Sanjeev Lele, M.D., Wen Y. Chen, M.D., and Kirk Morey, M.D. On August 20, 2000, the government filed a motion to intervene and to proceed with the action against Dr. Huda. This action has not been severed.

Count VII of the first amended complaint alleges that Dr. Lele conspired with Dr. Huda to defraud the United States by getting false or fraudulent claims allowed or paid, in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(3). Count VIII of the first amended complaint alleges that Dr. Morey similarly conspired with Dr. Huda, also in violation of § 3729(a)(3). Plaintiffs further allege that Dr. Huda is a licensed ophthalmologist in Illinois; operates an office in Illinois; provided medical and surgical services in East St. Louis, Illinois; and provided surgical services in Webster Groves and St. Louis, Missouri. The first amended complaint also alleges that Dr. Lele provided surgical services in St. Louis, Missouri, to a number of Dr. Huda’s patients, and that Dr. Morey provided surgical services in Webster Groves, Missouri, to a number of Dr. Huda’s patients.1

ANALYSIS

Initially, both Dr. Lele and Dr. Morey claim that they do not maintain adequate minimum contacts with the relevant forum so as to allow this Court to exercise personal jurisdiction over them. Dr. Morey alternatively claims that the Southern District of Illinois is not the proper venue. In addition, Dr. Lele filed a separate motion to sever. Each defendant essentially puts forth the same primary legal argument regarding per[227]*227sonal jurisdiction, therefore the Court will address this argument first. Specifically, Drs. Lele and Morey claim that plaintiffs must show that defendants have minimum contacts with the state in which this Court sits (Illinois), rather than with the United States.

1. Personal Jurisdiction and Venue

In order for a federal court to exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant in a federal question case, the court must determine (1) whether the applicable statute confers jurisdiction by authorizing service of process on the defendant, and (2) whether the exercise of jurisdiction accords with due process requirements. See United States v. De Ortiz, 910 F.2d 376, 382-83 (7th Cir.1990) (citing Omni Capital Int’l v. Rudolf Wolff & Co., 484 U.S. 97, 104, 108 S.Ct. 404, 98 L.Ed.2d 415 (1987)). It is undisputed that 31 U.S.C. § 3732(a) of the False Claims Act authorizes nationwide service of process.2 Rather, Drs. Lele and Morey contest this Court’s exercise of personal jurisdiction on due process grounds; specifically, they argue that plaintiffs must establish that defendants have minimum contacts with the State of Illinois, and that plaintiffs have failed to do so.

Neither the Supreme Court nor the Seventh Circuit has addressed the issue of the relevant forum (the United States or the state in which the federal court sits) on which to base a minimum contacts analysis under the False Claims Act. The Seventh Circuit, however, has addressed the issue of the relevant minimum contacts forum in relation to other federal statutes authorizing nationwide service of process, and concluded that a “national contacts” analysis is appropriate. See, e.g., United Rope Distribs., Inc. v. Seatriumph Marine Corp., 930 F.2d 532, 534 (7th Cir.1991) (admiralty law); Lisak v. Mercantile Bancorp., Inc., 834 F.2d 668, 671-72 (7th Cir.1987) (RICO); Fitzsimmons v. Barton, 589 F.2d 330, 332-34 (7th Cir.1979) (securities law). In a more recent case, the Seventh Circuit held that the nationwide service provision in ERISA, 29 U.S.C. § 1132(e)(2), is constitutional, and stated:

Linking personal jurisdiction to a defendant’s “contacts” with the forum developed in state litigation. Due process limitations on adjudication in state courts reflect not so much questions of convenience as of jurisdictional power. Barrow, Alaska, is farther from Juneau than Indianapolis is from Alexandria, and travel from Barrow to Juneau is much harder than is travel from Indianapolis to Alexandria (there are no highways and no scheduled air service from Barrow to anywhere), yet no one doubts that the Constitution permits Alaska to require any of its citizens to answer a complaint filed in Juneau, the state capital, just as the United States confines some kinds of federal cases to Washington, D.C., on the eastern seaboard. Conversely Kentucky’s proximity to southern Indiana (Louisville would be more convenient for residents of New Albany than tribunals in Indianapolis) does not permit Kentucky to adjudicate the rights of people who have never visited that state or done business there; its sovereignty stops at the border. Limitations on sovereignty, and not the convenience of defendants, lie at the core of cases such as Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985), and World-Wide Volkswagen Corp. v. Woodson, 444 U.S. 286, 100 S.Ct. 559, 62 L.Ed.2d 490 (1980), and their many predecessors.
No limitations on sovereignty come into play in federal courts when all litigants are citizens. It is one sovereign, the same “judicial Power,” whether the court sits in Indianapolis or Alexandria.

Board of Trs., Sheet Metal Workers’ Nat’l Pension Fund v. Elite Erectors, Inc., 212 F.3d 1031, 1036 (7th Cir.2000); see also Janmark, Inc. v. Reidy, 132 F.3d 1200, 1201 (7th [228]*228Cir.1997) (district court must determine whether state in which it sits is authorized to exercise personal jurisdiction unless a federal statute authorizes nationwide service,

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205 F.R.D. 225, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22124, 2001 WL 1700737, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-ex-rel-finks-v-huda-ilsd-2001.