IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-11472

United States of America, ex rel, EDWARD HENDRICKSON, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

BANK OF AMERICA, N.A.; WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A.; CITIBANK, N.A.; 

COMERICA BANK; WELLS FARGO BANK N.A., as successor in interest to 

Wachovia Bank National Association; JP MORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A.; 

MANUFACTURERS AND TRADERS TRUST COMPANY; SEACOAST 

NATIONAL BANK; FIFTH THIRD BANK; PNC BANK, N. A.; THE 

NORTHERN TRUST COMPANY; FROST BANK; THE AMERICAN 

NATIONAL BANK OF TEXAS; CENTRUE BANK; AMARILLO NATIONAL 

BANK; 

 Defendants - Appellees

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Texas

USDC No. 3:16-CV-292

Before BARKSDALE, STEWART, and COSTA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

At issue is whether the district court properly dismissed, with prejudice,

a reverse-false-claims action (pursued under 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(1)(G)) on two 

 

* Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. 

R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

October 7, 2019

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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independent grounds: the False Claims Act’s (FCA) public-disclosure 

provision, 31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4), barred the action; and the complaint failed to 

plead the alleged scheme with sufficient detail. AFFIRMED.

I.

Relator Edward Hendrickson, a former fraud investigator in the 

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General, alleged 

15 banks knowingly and improperly avoided their regulatory obligation to 

return government-benefit payments they received for beneficiaries they knew 

to be deceased. See 31 C.F.R. § 210.10(a) (2019) (“A[ ] [bank] shall return any 

benefit payments received after [it] becomes aware of the death or legal 

incapacity of a recipient or the death of a beneficiary, regardless of the manner 

in which the [bank] discovers such information.”). They had to know so, he 

alleged, because the Social Security Administration’s (SSA) procedures require 

it to send death notification entries (DNEs) to receiving depository financial 

institutions, including defendants, once the SSA learns of a recipient’s death. 

On 23 March 2010, an amendment to the FCA’s public-disclosure bar, 

31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4), became law. Patient Protection and Affordable Care 

Act, Pub. L. No. 111-148, § 10104, 124 Stat. 119, 901–02 (2010). The 

amendment removed the public-disclosure-bar’s jurisdictional provision. 

Abbott v. BP Expl. & Prod., Inc., 851 F.3d 384, 387 n.2 (5th Cir. 2017) (“We 

agree with our sister circuits that the public[-]disclosure bar is no longer 

jurisdictional.”). Because of the FCA’s six-year statute of limitations, 

Hendrickson’s action, filed 2 February 2016, implicates both the former and 

current versions of that bar, as the district court recognized. 

Defendant banks filed, inter alia, a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

12(b)(6) motion to dismiss based on, among other things, the public-disclosure 

bar, attaching 16 documents they claimed constituted public disclosures, and 

stating in their supporting brief that “[t]his Court may elect to treat this 

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motion as either a Rule 12(b)(6) [motion] or a motion for summary judgment”. 

Resolving the public-disclosure ground first, because it was jurisdictional with 

respect to the portion of Hendrickson’s claims from 2 February to 23 March 

2010, the district court dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) (or, alternatively, 

converted from a motion to dismiss to summary judgment, as Rule 12(d) 

requires when considering matters beyond the pleadings, and granted 

summary judgment) because the public-disclosure bar applied. U.S. ex rel. 

Hendrickson v. Bank of Am., N.A., 343 F. Supp. 3d 610, 623 n.7, 630 & n.24 

(N.D. Tex. 2018). After concluding the documents the banks offered to support 

their motion constituted public disclosures, it held six of them disclosed 

substantially the same allegations as the complaint. Id. at 625, 628–29. It 

then concluded Hendrickson was not an original source because he learned of 

the alleged misconduct through his employment as a VA fraud investigator. 

Id. at 629–30. 

In the alternative, the court dismissed Hendrickson’s action pursuant to 

Rules 12(b)(6) and 9(b). Id. at 631. It ruled the complaint failed Rule 9(b)’s 

particularity requirement because, inter alia, it failed to distinguish among 

defendants or present necessary details of the alleged scheme. Id. at 632–36. 

II.

In addition to the motion’s being properly converted to one for summary 

judgment, a motion to dismiss based on the FCA’s public-disclosure bar is 

“necessarily intertwined with the merits and is, therefore, properly treated as 

a motion for summary judgment”. U.S. ex rel. Jamison v. McKesson Corp., 

649 F.3d 322, 326 (5th Cir. 2011) (internal quotation marks and citation 

omitted). A summary judgment is reviewed de novo and is proper if, viewing 

the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-movant, “there is no genuine 

dispute a[s] to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a 

matter of law”. Id. (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)).

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The public-disclosure bar has three elements: (1) a public 

disclosure (2) containing “substantially the same allegations” as the 

complaint, and (3) the relator is not the information’s “original source”. 

31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4). Not disputing that the six documents constituted public 

disclosures, Hendrickson claims they do not disclose substantially the same 

allegations as his complaint because they do not reference DNEs or name 

specific banks. The banks respond that the documents’ disclosures are as 

specific as the complaint, which fails to allege particular instances of their 

receiving DNEs or differentiate allegations made against each defendant. 

A dismissal pursuant to Rules 12(b)(6) and 9(b) is also reviewed de novo. 

U.S. ex rel. Grubbs v. Kanneganti, 565 F.3d 180, 185 & n.8 (5th Cir. 2009). “To 

survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, 

accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft 

v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotation marks and citation 

omitted). Hendrickson claims his complaint provided fair notice and 

sufficiently alleged a fraudulent scheme. The banks counter that the 

complaint neither differentiates among them nor alleges any particular facts 

showing a fraudulent scheme ever existed. (Although Hendrickson contended

at oral argument that Rule 9(b) does not apply to his reverse-false-claim action 

because, in his view, the operative statute, 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(1)(G), requires 

proof of breach of an obligation, not proof of fraud, he concedes he did not raise 

this issue until then. It goes without saying that we do not consider this 

belated contention. See, e.g., Zuccarello v. Exxon Corp., 756 F.2d 402, 407–08 

(5th Cir. 1985) (holding issue raised only at oral argument waived).)

Essentially for the reasons stated in the district court’s opinion,

343 F. Supp. 3d 610, summary judgment and, in the alternative, Rule 12(b)(6) 

dismissal were proper. Further amendment to the complaint would be 

unavailing following summary judgment because “there [is] no longer existent 

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a claim to be amended”. Mitsubishi Aircraft Int’l, Inc. v. Brady, 780 F.2d 1199, 

1203 (5th Cir. 1986). (In any event, Hendrickson did not seek in district court, 

and does not seek on appeal, leave to amend.) 

III.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment is AFFIRMED.

Judge Costa would affirm only on the ground that the complaint fails to meet 

Rule 9(b)’s particularity standard. 

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