Opinion ID: 4561954
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: we decline to resolve most

Text: OF THE RESIDUAL ISSUES Just because New JKJ can take part without violating the first-to-file bar does not mean that it is taking part as a matter of partnership law and ordinary civil procedure. Deciding whether New JKJ is properly a relator depends on record materials and recent developments that the District Court never had the chance to consider. Rather than hazard answers, we will instead send the case back to let the District Court answer those lingering questions first.
To guide the District Court on remand, we flag several issues that bear on whether New JKJ is a proper relator. First, Sanofi and Bristol argue that the second amended complaint’s allegations are so different from those that appeared earlier that they make the amendment improper. As noted, even wholesale changes in a complaint do not implicate the first-to-file bar, as long as the relator does not bring a new “action.” 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(5). But we offer no view on whether, as a matter of generic civil procedure, this amendment might exceed the bounds of Rule 15. Second, the Delaware Supreme Court found that both New and Old JKJ are aggregate partnerships. In re Plavix II, 226 A.3d at 1132–33. A key feature of aggregate partnerships is 16 that they cannot sue or be sued in their own names. See id. at 1123. So one could question whether either partnership was ever a proper relator. The District Court should decide whether that is true and, if so, whether to allow amendment so that the partners can name themselves as the real relators in interest. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 17(a)(3). Third, the District Court will need to decide whether Old JKJ or New JKJ owns this lawsuit. While this appeal was pending, the partnership executed an agreement purporting to transfer this litigation asset. Perhaps the agreement was unnecessary: perhaps the change in membership and concomitant dissolution of Old JKJ and the formation of New JKJ automatically transferred the asset from the former to the latter. If not, the District Court should determine whether the suit could be transferred and whether Old JKJ had the power to transfer it as part of its winding-up process. This list of issues for remand is not exhaustive. The court is free to take up other matters as it sees fit. B. Property stakes in qui tam suits are transferrable Though we leave many of these issues for remand, we will settle one last False Claims Act issue. Sanofi and Bristol argue that the Anti-Assignment Act bars a qui tam relator from ever assigning its interest in a suit. 31 U.S.C. § 3727. A qui tam relator is, of course, entitled to a share of the Government’s recovery. So, they assert, transferring the relator’s interest in the action would amount to a forbidden “transfer or assignment of any part of a claim against the United States Government or an interest in the claim.” Id. § 3727(a)(1). 17 That argument fails. Whether a plaintiff sues for itself or for another, its claim is “against” the defendant, not “against” any real party in interest who might get a share of the recovery. The relator might eventually have a claim against the Government if the Government recovered a judgment and refused to give the relator its share. See 31 U.S.C. § 3730(d)(1). But the first suit does not assert a “claim against the United States Government.” Id. § 3727(a)(1) (emphasis added).