Nackman

Dr. Robert Hochman and Dr. Susan Des-chenes, employees of the Los Angeles Veterans Administration Outpatient Medical Clinic (Clinic), brought this qui tarn action under the False Claims Act, 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-33 (1994), against Clinic administrators and against physicians who were affiliated with both the Clinic and the University of Southern California School of Medicine (USCSM). Hochman and Deschenes alleged, inter alia, that the defendants submitted and approved inaccurate attendance records for Clinic physicians, thereby charging the government for time that the physicians did not spend at the Clinic. The district court granted summary judgment in the defendants’ favor, and Hoch-man and Deschenes now appeal. We hold that the False Claims Act’s statutory bar to claims based on publicly disclosed information did not prevent the district court from exercising jurisdiction over this case. Because the qui tam plaintiffs failed to present evidence upon which a reasonable factfinder could conclude that the defendants knowingly presented false claims, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the defendants. We also hold that the district court did not abuse its…