UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 13-2342

RONALD P. YOUNG; RAMONA YOUNG,

 Plaintiffs – Appellants,

v.

CHS MIDDLE EAST, LLC,

 Defendant – Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern 

District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Gerald Bruce Lee, District 

Judge. (1:13-cv-00585-GBL-JFA)

Argued: January 28, 2015 Decided: May 27, 2015

Before MOTZ, GREGORY, and WYNN, Circuit Judges.

Reversed and remanded by unpublished opinion. Judge Wynn wrote 

the opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Gregory joined.

ARGUED: Robert Scott Oswald, THE EMPLOYMENT LAW GROUP, P.C.,

Washington, D.C., for Appellants. John Kirk Train, IV, 

WEINBERG, WHEELER, HUDGINS, GUNN & DIAL, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia, 

for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Nicholas Woodfield, THE EMPLOYMENT LAW 

GROUP, P.C., Washington, D.C., for Appellants. Julie C. Hall, 

WEINBERG, WHEELER, HUDGINS, GUNN & DIAL, LLC, Atlanta, Georgia; 

Carlos M. Recio, Washington, D.C., for Appellee.
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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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WYNN, Circuit Judge:

The False Claims Act’s whistleblower provision prohibits 

retaliation “because of lawful acts done . . . in furtherance of 

an action” under, or otherwise “to stop 1 or more violations 

of,” the False Claims Act. 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h). Plaintiffs 

Ronald and Ramona Young contend that they sufficiently alleged

that their former employer, CHS Middle East (“CHS”), terminated 

them because they undertook lawful acts “in furtherance of an 

action” under, or otherwise “to stop 1 or more violations of,”

the False Claims Act. Id. Particularly in light of United 

States ex rel. Omar Badr v. Triple Canopy, Inc., 775 F.3d 628 

(4th Cir. 2015), we agree and conclude that the district court 

erred in dismissing the Youngs’ suit for failure to state a 

claim. Accordingly, we reverse.

I.

Accepting the facts pled as true, as we must on a motion to 

dismiss, CHS had a $61.5 million services agreement with the 

U.S. Department of State to provide medical services to nonmilitary personnel in Iraq. The contract required CHS to 

“ensure” that its staff was “properly trained and certified.” 

J.A. 99. Pursuant to that contract, CHS hired the Youngs, both 

experienced nurses, to work as “Medical Surgery Registered 

Nurses.” Id.
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When he began work in September 2011 at Forward Operating 

Base Shield in Iraq, Ronald Young noticed that CHS attempted to 

utilize expired medicine. He informed his supervisors that 

“using them was illegal” and “violated CHS’ contractual 

requirements with the Department of State.” J.A. 100. By 

November 2011, Ronald Young was transferred to Sather Air Force 

Base (“Sather”), where his critical care skills were needed.

Ramona Young also worked at Sather, beginning in October 

2011, where she expressed concern “about the lack of equipment 

and properly trained medical personnel.” J.A. 100. She 

informed a supervisor that such shortcomings were “totally 

misleading,” put her nursing license “on the line,” and amounted 

to a “breach of CHS’s contract for properly trained and 

qualified staff.” J.A. 100-01.

At a staff meeting, Ramona Young shared her concerns that 

Sather was “not properly staffed, [ ] did not have qualified 

staff, and that according to CHS’s contract we would have . . . 

properly trained and qualified [staff].” J.A. 101. Both of the 

Youngs allegedly mentioned that the failings they witnessed were 

“a total breach of contract.” J.A. 101. The Youngs observed 

various additional failings and escalated their concerns to CHS 

employees not stationed in Iraq.

The Youngs allege that “Mr. Young [] told [CHS’s director 

of international operations] that ‘CHS management at Sather is 
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defrauding the government.’” J.A. 104. The Youngs pled that 

Ronald Young told CHS’s director of international operations 

that “CHS list[ed] emergency medical technicians as scrub 

technicians for surgery even though they had no surgical 

experience.” Id. And “Mrs. Young emphasized ‘the potential 

liability’ of reporting false employee staffing at Sather to the 

State Department.” Id.

The Youngs allege that CHS staff began treating them poorly 

because of their whistleblowing. On December 20, 2011, the 

Youngs contacted the State Department to raise their concerns 

regarding CHS. Two days later, CHS terminated the Youngs. The

Youngs returned to the United States on December 24, 2011.

In July 2012, the Youngs filed this case in state court, 

and it was then removed to the Eastern District of Virginia. 

There, the district court granted CHS’s motion to dismiss the 

Young’s first amended complaint for failure to state a claim but 

permitted them to file a second amended complaint, which they 

did. On October 28, 2013, the court again granted CHS’s motion 

to dismiss, this time with prejudice. The Youngs timely 

appealed from this dismissal, which we review de novo, 

construing the facts and inferences to be drawn therefrom in the 

light most favorable to the nonmoving party, here the Youngs. 

Kendall v. Balcerzak, 650 F.3d 515, 522 (4th Cir. 2011).
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II.

A.

The False Claims Act discourages fraud against the federal 

government by imposing liability on “any person who . . . 

knowingly presents, or causes to be presented, a false or 

fraudulent claim for payment or approval.” 31 U.S.C. §

3729(a)(1)(A). Central to this case, the False Claims Act

includes a whistleblower provision. 

The whistleblower provision, which Congress broadened in 

2009, prohibits retaliation “because of lawful acts done . . .

in furtherance of an action under this section or other efforts 

to stop 1 or more violations of this subchapter.” 31 U.S.C. § 

3730(h). In other words, among other things, it “protect[s] 

employees while they are collecting information about a possible 

fraud, before they have put all the pieces of the puzzle 

together.” United States ex rel. Yesudian v. Howard Univ., 153 

F.3d 731, 739 (D.C. Cir. 1998). 

To survive a motion to dismiss, plaintiffs bringing an 

anti-retaliation suit under the False Claims Act must plausibly

allege that (1) they engaged in a protected activity; (2) the

employer knew about these acts; and (3) the employer discharged 

them as a result of these acts. Eberhardt v. Integrated Design 

& Const., Inc., 167 F.3d 861, 866 (4th Cir. 1999). Notably,

these allegations need pass only Civil Procedure Rule 8(a)’s 
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relatively low notice-pleadings muster. See, e.g., Mendiondo v. 

Centinela Hosp. Med. Ctr., 521 F.3d 1097, 1103 (9th Cir. 2008); 

United States ex rel. Williams v. Martin-Baker Aircraft Co., 389 

F.3d 1251, 1259-60 (D.C. Cir. 2004).1

B.

The sole element on which CHS based its motion to dismiss 

and on which the district court ostensibly dismissed the case2 is 

the first: the requirement that the Youngs plausibly allege that 

they engaged in protected activity. Applying the law to the

second amended complaint, we conclude that the Youngs have

plausibly alleged that element.

To survive CHS’s motion to dismiss, the Youngs needed to

plead that they engaged in protected activity, i.e., that they 

acted “in furtherance of an action under” the False Claims Act 

or undertook “other efforts to stop 1 or more violations” of the 

False Claims Act. 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h). Protected activities 

include collecting information about a possible fraud, even 

before the plaintiff puts together “all the pieces of the 

puzzle.” Mann v. Heckler & Koch Defense, Inc., 630 F.3d 338, 

343-44 (4th Cir. 2010) (quotation marks and citation omitted). 

 1 This contrasts with the higher Rule 9(b) standard that 

applies to straight-up Fraud Claims Act fraud claims. Id.

2 The district court stated its reasoning orally from the 

bench. 
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By contrast, protected activities exclude “those in which ‘an 

employee . . . fabricates a tale of fraud to extract concessions 

from the employer, or . . . just imagines fraud but lacks 

proof.’” Id. (quoting Neal v. Honeywell Inc., 33 F.3d 860, 864 

(7th Cir. 1994)).

In United States v. Triple Canopy, Inc., this Court

recently shed additional light on what might qualify as 

protected activity. 775 F.3d 628. In Triple Canopy, the 

government alleged that a security contractor with primary 

responsibility for ensuring the safety of servicemen and women 

stationed at an airbase in a combat zone knowingly employed 

guards who were unable to use their weapons properly yet 

presented claims to the government for payment on those 

unqualified guards. Id. at 632-633. We reversed the dismissal 

of the claim, holding that a plaintiff successfully “pleads a 

false claim when it alleges that the contractor, with the 

requisite scienter, made a request for payment under a contract 

and withheld information about its noncompliance with material 

contractual requirements.” Id. at 636. Logically, if making 

false implied staffing certifications to the government can 

constitute a False Claims Act violation, acts undertaken to, for 

example, investigate, stop, or bring an action regarding such 

false implied staffing certifications can constitute protected 
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activity for purposes of a retaliation claim. 31 U.S.C. § 

3730(h). 

Our review of the Youngs’ second amended complaint leads us 

to conclude that they have plausibly pled the protected activity 

element. They alleged, for example, that under CHS’s “$61.5 

million contract with the U.S. State Department to provide 

medical services at medical facilities in Iraq,” CHS was 

obligated to “[e]nsure that [certain personnel] are properly 

trained and certified prior to arrival in theater.” J.A. 99. 

The Youngs alleged that “Mr. Young [] told [CHS’s director of 

international operations] that ‘CHS management at Sather is 

defrauding the government.’” J.A. 104. The Youngs pled that 

Robert Young told CHS’s director of international operations 

that “CHS list[ed] emergency medical technicians as scrub 

technicians for surgery even though they had no surgical 

experience.” Id. And “Mrs. Young emphasized ‘the potential 

liability’ of reporting false employee staffing at Sather to the 

State Department.” Id.

In holding that these allegations fail to state a 

retaliation claim, the district court expressly relied on Glynn 

v. EDO Corp., 710 F.3d 209 (4th Cir. 2013). Importantly, Glynn

predated our recent Triple Canopy decision, which bolsters the 

plausibility of the Youngs’ protected activity allegations.

Specifically, in light of Triple Canopy, the Youngs’ falsified 
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staffing report allegations more clearly support their having 

been engaged in protected activity. Further, the retaliation at 

issue in Glynn predated Congress’s broadening of 31 U.S.C. 

§ 3730(h)(1) to capture not only acts done “in furtherance of an 

action” under, but also “other efforts to stop 1 or more 

violations” of, the False Claims Act. Finally, Glynn had 

reached summary judgment, when the plaintiffs had to proffer not

just allegations but evidence, which they failed to do. By 

contrast, here, we are reviewing a decision on a motion to 

dismiss, and the Youngs’ allegations alone are our focus. 

At this stage, we are obligated to view only the Youngs’ 

pleadings, and to view them generously in the Youngs’ favor. 

Pub. Employees’ Ret. Ass’n of Colo. v. Deloitte & Touche LLP, 

551 F.3d 305, 311 (4th Cir. 2009). Doing so, we conclude that 

the Youngs have sufficiently pled that they engaged in protected 

activity, i.e., that they acted “in furtherance of an action”

under, or in an “effort[] to stop 1 or more violations of,” the 

False Claims Act. 31 U.S.C. § 3730(h). While the Youngs’

allegations may well be insufficient to state a False Claims Act 

fraud claim subject to Rule 9(b)’s heightened pleading 

standards, they make no such claim. Instead, they make only a 

retaliation claim subject to Rule 8(a)’s notice pleadings 

standard. And particularly in light of Triple Canopy, their

allegations suffice to survive CHS’s motion to dismiss.
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III.

For the reasons explained above, the district court’s 

dismissal of the Youngs’ second amended complaint is reversed,

and the case is remanded for further proceedings.

REVERSED AND REMANDED