Opinion ID: 873494
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Dismissal of the Amended Complaint

Text: On July 5, 2012, about nine months after the government and Bennett voluntarily dismissed the Bennett Complaint, the district court in this case granted BSC's motion to dismiss Heineman-Guta's amended complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1). Guidant Corp., 874 F. Supp. 2d at 41. The court held that the first-to-file rule under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(5) barred consideration of the amended complaint because it alleged the same essential facts of the kickback scheme as the Bennett Complaint. Id. at 38-39, 41. The court found that the essential facts contained in the Bennett Complaint provided the government sufficient notice that it was the potential victim of fraud worthy of investigation and, that as a result, it served as the preclusive first-filed complaint for the purposes of § 3730(b)(5). Id. at 40-41. Despite the fact that the Bennett Complaint had been voluntarily dismissed in another court which had not been called upon to examine its Rule 9(b) sufficiency, Heineman-Guta's main argument below was that the Bennett Complaint did not satisfy that -11- rule's particularity requirements. She contended that the Bennett Complaint lacked specific details about the alleged kickback scheme such as dates, places and names of physicians involved. According to Heineman-Guta, the Bennett Complaint's failure to satisfy Rule 9(b) pleading requirements meant it could not serve as a preclusive first-filed complaint under § 3730(b)(5) to bar her qui tam action. The district court, recognizing we had yet to rule on whether preclusive first-filed complaints must comply with Rule 9(b), rejected her argument. Id. at 40 n.10. In doing so, it adopted the reasoning of the D.C. Circuit in United States ex rel. Batiste v. SLM Corp., 659 F.3d 1204, 1210 (D.C. Cir. 2011), which held that a complaint need not satisfy Rule 9(b) requirements to serve as a preclusive first-filed complaint under § 3730(b)(5). Id. at 40. Heineman-Guta timely appealed.