San Francisco Unified School District ex rel. Contreras v. First Student, Inc.

In this action brought under the False Claims Act (Gov. Code, § 12650 et seq.), 1 the qui tarn plaintiffs allege that defendant Laidlaw Transit, Inc. (Laidlaw), and its successor in interest, First Student, Inc. (FSI), failed to maintain and repair the company’s buses as required by the company’s contract with San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD). At issue here is an injunction issued by the trial court barring the individual plaintiffs, former employees of Laidlaw, from discussing the lawsuit with any current employees of FSI.

The individual plaintiffs challenge the injunction, arguing it is unsupported by the State Bar Rules of Professional Conduct barring ex parte communication with represented parties (Rules Prof. Conduct, rule 2-100), 2 is inconsistent with the policies underlying the False Claims Act, and infringes on their First Amendment rights of free speech. We vacate the injunction.

I. Background

We described the background of this case in our opinion in a prior appeal: “Plaintiffs [William] Padilla and [Manuel] Contreras are former Laidlaw *1216 employees. Plaintiff Environmental Law Foundation is a California nonprofit organization ‘dedicated to…