United States ex rel. Devlin v. California

This is a qui tam action filed under the False Claims Act (“FCA”), 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3733 (1988), based upon allegations that the Social Services Department of Mari-posa County (“SSD”) has defrauded the United States government by inflating client statistics, in order to qualify for increased federal funding under various federal programs. The district court dismissed the action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1) on the ground that the relators were not an “original source” of the information on which the allegations of fraud were based as required by § 3730(e)(4) of the FCA. 1 We affirm.

I

The facts relevant to the original source issue are not in dispute: During the week of January 13, 1992, relators Rod Kodman and William Devlin were informed of the alleged fraud by William Cotey, an SSD employee who had participated in the fraud by falsifying records. Shortly thereafter, relator Dev-lin, Cotey, and Cotey’s wife met with Jerry Rankin, a Mariposa Gazette reporter, and told him about the alleged fraud. On February 6, 1992, the Mariposa Gazette published an article by Rankin describing SSD’s allegedly fraudulent conduct. Five days…