United States ex rel. Schumer v. Hughes Aircraft Co.

Appellant William J. Schumer, a former manager at Hughes Aircraft Company (“Hughes”), filed suit against Hughes under the qui tarn provisions of the False Claims Act (“FCA”), 31 U.S.C. § 3729 et seq. Schumer asserted that Hughes had defrauded the United States government by entering into unauthorized and illegal “commonality agreements” to allocate certain costs of projects over more than one subcontract. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Hughes. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment on Schumer’s claims that Hughes failed to disclose properly the terms of its commonality agreements to its customer and that Hughes did not comply with the disclosure requirements of the Cost Accounting Standards. We affirm the district court’s rulings on Sehumer’s remaining claims.

After Schumer filed this appeal, Hughes filed a cross-appeal, alleging that the 1986 amendments to the FCA do not apply retrospectively to this claim and that, alternatively, the statute’s jurisdictional bar against claims based on publicly disclosed allegations applies in this case. We reject the cross-appeal on the grounds that under…