Opinion ID: 3214415
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: First to File

Text: We first examine Defendants' contention that the district court should have dismissed the 2012 Kelly Action based on the first-to-file rule. This rule bars a later-filed related action, 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(5), that alleges all the essential facts or the same elements of a fraud described in an earlier-filed complaint while that complaint is still pending, Wilson, 750 F.3d at 117. In this case, all of the parties agreed, and the court found, that the two suits involved the same basic facts and issues and were virtually identical to each other. United States ex rel. Garcia v. Novartis AG, 91 F. Supp. 3d 87, 99 (D. Mass. 2015). Yet, the court held that the first-to-file rule ought not bar the exercise of jurisdiction over the [2012 Kelly Action] in this particular case because Kelly and Garcia cofiled the Garcia Complaint. Id. In so holding, the district court erred. Neither the text nor the purpose of the statute permit such an exception. The stark no person language of the rule is plainly stated and exception-free. Wilson, 750 F.3d at 117; see also United - 12 - States ex rel. Duxbury v. Ortho Biotech Prods., L.P. (Duxbury), 579 F.3d 13, 16, 32-33 (1st Cir. 2009). The resulting bar furthers the FCA's goal of avoiding piecemeal and duplicative ligation that does not advance the government's investigation of alleged fraud. Once the government has sufficient notice to launch [an] investigation[,] . . . [a] later-filed complaint that mirrors the essential facts as the pending earlier-filed complaint does nothing to help reduce fraud of which the government is already aware. United States ex rel. HeinemanGuta v. Guidant Corp., 718 F.3d 28, 35-36 (1st Cir. 2013). It is true that Kelly was not the prototypical opportunistic or parasitic plaintiff, Novartis, 91 F. Supp. 3d at 99; however, Kelly cannot escape the fact that she voluntarily requested dismissal without prejudice from the 2006 Garcia Action. 'Without prejudice' does not mean 'without consequence.' Powell v. Starwalt, 866 F.2d 964, 966 (7th Cir. 1989). Nothing about her prior involvement in the 2006 Garcia Action could serve to dissolve the independent statutory bar to her bringing a new, and essentially identical, action in 2012. See United States ex rel. Shea v. Cellco P'ship, 748 F.3d 338, 342-43 (D.C. Cir. 2014), cert. granted, judgment vacated on other grounds, 135 S. Ct. 2376 (2015) (holding that [n]o rule - 13 - of grammar, logic, or the law compels a reading that the first-to-file bar applies only to litigants other than the relator who filed the original action); United States ex rel. Moore v. Pennrose Props., LLC, No. 3:11-cv-121, 2015 WL 1358034, at  (S.D. Ohio Mar. 24, 2015) (finding that a relator's status as an earlier filer did not prevent the first-to-file rule from barring his subsequent complaint); United States ex rel. Syzmoniak v. ACE Sec. Corp., C/A No. 0:13-cv-00464-JFA, 2014 WL 1910876, at -2, -6 (D.S.C. May 12, 2014) (dismissing second qui tam suit on first-to-file grounds even though same relator had filed earlier suit and second suit named additional defendants); United States ex rel. Smith v. Yale-New Haven Hosp., Inc., 411 F. Supp. 2d 64, 75-76 (D. Conn. 2005) (dismissing second qui tam complaint filed by the same relator on first-to-file grounds because the bar applies equally to the original relator as any other person). Although Relators argue that Kelly brought her claims with her when she left the 2006 Garcia Action, this is little more than a thin fiction. When Kelly was dismissed from the 2006 Garcia Action, the court only ordered that Garcia file an amended complaint and remov[e] all references to Relator Allison Kelly; an order which, in any event, was not followed. - 14 - Kelly may have left the 2006 Garcia Action, but the essential allegations remained behind. For these reasons, the 2012 Kelly Complaint should have been dismissed under the first-to-file bar. This does not, however, end our inquiry. Complaints dismissed under the firstto-file bar are usually dismissed without prejudice. See United States ex rel. Gadbois v. PharMerica Corp., 809 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 2015) ([T]he dismissal of a section 3730(b)(5) claim ordinarily should be without prejudice, because the claim could be refiled once the first-filed action is no longer pending.). Yet, this case presents a procedural wrinkle. If the court properly dismissed the 2006 Garcia Complaint based on its failure to allege fraud with sufficient particularity, then the presently pending case would drop out and the first-to-file bar on the 2012 Kelly Complaint might be lifted. See id. at 6. In such circumstances, Kelly could conceivably supplement or refile her complaint. See id. at 7-8. In this case, however, remanding would be a wasteful formality. Even if the district court were to find on remand that it now had jurisdiction, that court has already held that the 2012 Kelly Complaint is insufficiently particularized to offset a Rule 9(b) challenge. Because we would send the action - 15 - back to a fate certain and the merits of the district court's particularity decision are undoubtedly correct, we will spare the litigants a costly and unnecessary round trip and address the district court's particularity decisions with respect to both complaints now.9 Cf. Bullard v. Hyde Park Sav. Bank (In re Bullard), 752 F.3d 483, 485 n.1 (1st Cir. 2014), aff'd sub nom. Bullard v. Blue Hills Bank, 135 S. Ct. 1686 (2015).