[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3180 Introduced in House (IH)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3180

 To amend title 31, United States Code, to clarify who is an original 
           source for purposes of bringing a qui tam action.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 25, 2007

Mr. Udall of Colorado introduced the following bill; which was referred 
                   to the Committee on the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
 To amend title 31, United States Code, to clarify who is an original 
           source for purposes of bringing a qui tam action.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE; FINDINGS; PURPOSE.

    (a) Short Title.--This Act may be cited as the ``Whistleblower 
Recovery Act of 2007''.
    (b) Findings.--The Congress finds the following:
            (1) The False Claims Act, codified in title 31, United 
        States Code, was established to encourage the disclosure of 
        wrongdoing by Federal agencies or those contracting with or 
        otherwise working on behalf of Federal agencies by allowing so-
        called ``whistleblowers'' to recover a portion of any awards 
        recovered from judicial proceedings from such disclosures.
            (2) On March 27, 2007, the United States Supreme Court, in 
        Rockwell International Corp. v. United States, ruled that a 
        former employee at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant of the 
        United States Department of Energy, Mr. James Stone, was not 
        entitled to recovery under the False Claims Act regarding the 
        failure of a component of the cleanup of this site.
            (3) The Court found that even though Mr. Stone was an 
        ``independent source'' of allegations regarding the failure of 
        the cleanup activity--and of the public disclosure of those 
        allegations--he could not recover because he did not have 
        direct knowledge of the precise way that the failure occurred 
        and was determined at trial. As a result, the Court concluded 
        that it did not have jurisdiction to determine whether Mr. 
        Stone was entitled to recovery.
            (4) The Court's ruling may have the undesired effect of 
        discouraging ``whistleblowers'', as it could make it harder for 
        them to gain access to the Court in order to prove that they 
        may be entitled to recovery as an ``original source'' under the 
        False Claims Act. By requiring that purported 
        ``whistleblowers'' must know of the precise way in which an 
        allegation or transaction of wrongdoing occurs, the Court set a 
        high and potentially insurmountable hurdle for 
        ``whistleblowers'' to meet. In the best interest of public 
        policy--and to encourage people to come forward and disclose 
        allegations of wrongdoing--it's necessary to make it clear that 
        ``whistleblowers'' need only have direct knowledge of the 
        public disclosure of the allegations or transactions and not of 
        the precise way in which the wrongdoing occurs. In other words, 
        if an action would not have been brought and an award granted 
        under the False Claims Act but for the public disclosures of 
        the ``whistleblower,'' that ``whistleblower'' should be allowed 
        to an award under the False Claims Act.
    (c) Purpose.--The purpose of this Act is to clarify that 
individuals who publicly disclose allegations or transactions of false 
claims can still recover a portion of any awards following legal 
proceedings of allegations or false claims under the False Claims Act 
for those public disclosures.

SEC. 2. AMENDMENT TO FALSE CLAIMS PROVISIONS.

    Subparagraph (B) of section 3730(e)(4) of title 31, United States 
Code, is amended to read as follows:
    ``(B) For purposes of this paragraph, the term `original source' 
means an individual who has direct and independent knowledge of 
information that the individual has voluntarily provided to the 
Government before filing an action under this subsection and that is 
the basis for either--
            ``(i) the allegations or transactions; or
            ``(ii) public disclosure of the allegations or 
        transactions.''.

SEC. 3. EFFECTIVE DATE.

    The amendment made by section 2 shall apply to any civil action 
commenced under section 3730 of title 31, United States Code, on or 
after the date of the enactment of this Act.
                                 <all>