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Nature of Suit Code: 375
Nature of Suit: False Claims Act
Cause of Action: 

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 21-10366

____________________

TROY OLHAUSEN,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

ARRIVA MEDICAL, LLC, 

ALERE, INC., 

AMERICAN MEDICAL SUPPLIES, INC., 

ABBOTT LABORATORIES, INC., 

Defendants-Appellees.

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2 Opinion of the Court 21-10366

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cv-20190-RNS

____________________

Before WILSON and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges, and COVINGTON,*

District Judge.

PER CURIAM:

Troy Olhausen appeals from the dismissal of his False 

Claims Act (“FCA”) action against Arriva Medical, LLC (“Arriva”), 

Alere, Inc. (“Alere”), American Medical Supplies, Inc., and Abbott 

Laboratories, Inc. (“Abbott”) (collectively, “Defendants”). Because 

dismissal was appropriate, we affirm.

BACKGROUND 

Arriva was a Florida provider of mail-order diabetic testing 

supplies and other medical products. Olhausen was Arriva’s Senior 

Vice President of Business Development and Marketing. In 2011, 

Alere acquired Arriva. In 2013, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) awarded Arriva a Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics/Orthotics and Supplies (“DMEPOS”) competitive bidding contract to provide Medicare beneficiaries with mail-

* The Honorable Virginia Covington, United States District Judge for the Middle District of Florida, sitting by designation.

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21-10366 Opinion of the Court 3

order diabetic supplies. In 2017, Abbott acquired Alere, and closed 

Arriva soon after. 

 According to Olhausen’s second amended complaint, Arriva 

violated a number of Medicare rules in the course of furnishing 

supplies to its patients. As relevant here, Olhausen alleged that Arriva provided mail-order diabetic testing supplies without obtaining required Assignment of Benefit forms from patients. Olhausen

also alleged that Arriva violated Medicare rules and the terms of its 

competitive-bid contract when it failed to disclose or accredit its 

Tennessee, Arizona, and Philippines call-center locations. Finally, 

he alleged that Arriva conspired with its parent companies, Alere 

and Abbott to submit false Medicare claims based on regulatory 

violations alleged in the other Counts. 

The district court granted the Defendants’ motion to dismiss 

on the grounds that Olhausen failed to sufficiently plead his claims. 

STANDARD OF REVIEW 

“We review a dismissal with prejudice for failure to state a 

claim under the False Claims Act de novo.” Urquilla-Diaz v. Kaplan 

Univ., 780 F.3d 1039, 1050 (11th Cir. 2015) (citing Hopper v. Solvay 

Pharm., Inc., 588 F.3d 1318, 1324 (11th Cir.2009)). “In doing so, we

accept the allegations in the complaint as true and construe them 

along with the reasonable inferences therefrom in the relator’s favor.” Id. (citing McNutt v. Haleyville Med. Supplies, Inc., 423 F.3d 

1256, 1259 (11th Cir.2005)).

DISCUSSION 

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4 Opinion of the Court 21-10366

To prevail on his FCA claims, Olhausen must prove: “(1) a 

false statement or fraudulent course of conduct, (2) made with scienter, (3) that was material, causing (4) the government to pay out 

money or forfeit moneys due.” United States ex rel. v. Mortg.

Inv’rs Corp., 987 F.3d 1340, 1346 (11th Cir. 2021), cert. denied sub 

nom. Mortg. Inv’rs Corp. v. United States ex rel. Bibby, 141 S. Ct. 

2632 (2021). We assume without deciding that Olhausen’s second 

amended complaint pled with sufficient particularity that the Defendants submitted false statements to the government. We nonetheless affirm because we hold that Olhausen has failed to allege 

the element of scienter as a matter of law.1

Under the FCA, a person acts with the requisite scienter 

when she “knowingly” submits a false claim, which the FCA defines as either “actual knowledge,” “deliberate ignorance,” or 

“reckless disregard.” United States ex rel. Phalp v. Lincare Holdings, Inc., 857 F.3d 1148, 1155 (11th Cir. 2017) (citing 31 U.S.C. § 

3729(b)). The FCA’s scienter requirement is “rigorous.” Universal 

Health Servs., Inc. v. United States ex rel. Escobar, 579 U.S. 176, 

192 (2016). It ensures that FCA liability “does not reach an innocent, good-faith mistake about the meaning of an applicable rule or 

regulation,” nor does it reach “claims made based on reasonable 

but erroneous interpretations of a defendant’s legal obligations.” 

1 We may affirm on any ground that finds support in the record. Long v. 

Comm’r, 772 F.3d 670, 675 (11th Cir. 2014). Moreover, the parties have fully 

briefed the scienter issue. 

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21-10366 Opinion of the Court 5

United States ex rel. Purcell v. MWI Corp., 807 F.3d 281, 287–88 

(D.C. Cir. 2015) (internal quotation marks omitted). Where “the 

statutory text and relevant court and agency guidance allow for 

more than one reasonable interpretation, it would defy history and 

current thinking to treat a defendant who merely adopts one such 

interpretation as a knowing or reckless violator.” Safeco Ins. Co. of 

Am. v. Burr, 551 U.S. 47, 70 n.20 (2007). And the analysis of 

whether an interpretation of ambiguous law is reasonable is an objective one. Id. at 69–70. 

The Medicare rules that Olhausen alleged the Defendants 

violated are susceptible to multiple reasonable interpretations. As 

for Olhausen’s allegations regarding signatures, because Arriva had 

a Medicare contract, it was considered a “participating supplier.” 

42 C.F.R. § 400.202. Generally, “Medicare pays the supplier for 

covered services if the beneficiary . . . assigns the claim to the supplier and the supplier accepts the assignment.” Id. § 424.55(a). But 

“when payment is for services furnished by a participating physician or supplier, the beneficiary . . . is not required to assign the 

claim to the supplier in order for an assignment to be effective.” Id.

§424.55(c) (emphases added). And if a supplier “files a claim for 

services that involved no personal contact between the . . . supplier 

and the beneficiary . . . a representative of the . . . supplier may sign 

the claim on the beneficiary’s behalf.” Id. § 424.36(c).

Arriva concludes from these rules that it was not required to 

obtain beneficiary signatures for every assignment of benefits, including for assignments for products not covered by its DMEPOS 

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contract, such as heating pads, orthotic braces, and vacuum-therapy pumps. Even if Arriva’s interpretation is wrong (and it was 

required to obtain signatures), Olhausen cannot show that Arriva 

had the requisite scienter because it is an objectively reasonable interpretation of the rules to conclude that the signatures were not 

required. See, e.g., U.S. ex rel. Hixson v. Health Mgmt. Sys., Inc., 

613 F.3d 1186, 1190 (8th Cir. 2010) (“[A] statement that a defendant 

makes based on a reasonable interpretation of a statute cannot support a claim under the FCA if there is no authoritative contrary interpretation of that statute.”).

The same is true regarding the call-center locations allegations. Medicare regulations require a supplier to “enroll separate 

physical locations it uses to furnish Medicare-covered DMEPOS, 

with the exception of locations that it uses solely as warehouses or 

repair facilities.” 42 C.F.R. §424.57(b)(1). The term “furnish” is not 

defined. It is an objectively reasonable interpretation of the rule 

that Arriva’s call-center locations did not “furnish” DMEPOS, so it 

was not required to enroll them. Again, even if this interpretation 

is incorrect, that objectively reasonable conclusion by Arriva negates the scienter element. 

And for these same reasons, Olhausen also failed to plead 

the requisite scienter for Arriva and its parent companies to have 

conspired to violate the FCA. 

AFFIRMED.

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