United States v. United States ex rel. Thrower, No. 18-16408 (9th Cir. 2020)
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A district court order denying a government motion to dismiss a False Claims Act case under 31 U.S.C. 3730(c)(2)(A) is not an immediately appealable collateral order.
In this case, the Ninth Circuit dismissed, based on lack of jurisdiction, the government's appeal from the district court's order denying a government motion to dismiss a FCA case. The panel noted that this issue was not before the Supreme Court in United States ex rel. Eisenstein v. City of New York, 556 U.S. 928 (2009). The panel held that the collateral order doctrine did not apply because the district court's order did not resolve important questions separate from the merits. Because the interests implicated by an erroneous denial of a government motion to dismiss a FCA case in which it has not intervened are insufficiently important to justify an immediate appeal, the panel held that they fall outside of the collateral order doctrine's scope.
Court Description: False Claims Act / Collateral Order Doctrine. The panel dismissed for lack of jurisdiction an appeal from the district court’s order denying a government motion to dismiss a False Claims Act case. The government declined to intervene in the case and then sought dismissal under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(c)(2)(A), which allows the United States to move to dismiss an FCA action notwithstanding the objections of the relator who brought the action. The district court denied the motion to dismiss both because the government failed to meet its burden of demonstrating a valid governmental purpose related to the dismissal and because it failed to fully investigate the allegations of the amended complaint. The panel held that the district court’s order was not an immediately appealable collateral order. The panel concluded that this jurisdictional question was not decided by the Supreme Court in United States ex rel. Eisenstein v. * The Honorable Richard Linn, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sitting by designation. UNITED STATES V. UNITED STATES EX REL. THROWER 3 City of N.Y., 556 U.S. 928 (2009). The panel held that the collateral order doctrine did not apply because the district court’s order did not resolve important questions separate from the merits. The panel concluded that the interests implicated by an erroneous denial of a government motion to dismiss an FCA case in which it has not intervened were insufficiently important to justify an immediate appeal.
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