Opinion ID: 2681213
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: nish

Text: In his second amended complaint, Ahumada alleges that NISH facilitated NCED’s fraud by ignoring NCED’s lack of compliance with JWOD regulations. According to the complaint, NISH representatives toured NCED facilities on three occasions (in 1999, 2002, and 2005), and these visits “would have disclosed and did disclose that NCED did not employ significant numbers of severely disabled individuals.” J.A. 250. Nevertheless, the complaint alleges, NISH did not bar NCED from participating in the JWOD program. Instead, NISH continued to certify NCED’s compliance with JWOD labor requirements “each and every year.” Id. Meanwhile, NISH’s own revenues increased by at least 86 percent. Accordingly, the second amended complaint concludes, NISH “aided” NCED in “wrongfully profit[ing] from the United States.” Id. at 253. Even assuming these allegations are true, Ahumada has not established that they are based on his direct and independent knowledge. Ahumada worked at NCED for only six months in 2004, 17 so it is far from clear how he gained direct knowledge of the NISH visits in 1999, 2002, and 2005. Ahumada has offered no explanation for how he learned of these events. But nearly all of the information appears in public disclosures. Indeed, the second amended complaint itself explicitly cites testimony from the Lopez trial for at least one of its allegations against NISH. Accordingly, without any other explanation from Ahumada, we conclude that his knowledge necessarily derives from public disclosures or some other “intervening agency.” Grayson, 221 F.3d at 583. The allegations against NISH therefore do not avoid the public-disclosure bar.