110 HR 3180 IH: Whistleblower Recovery Act of U.S. House of Representatives 2007-07-25 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

I 110th CONGRESS 1st Session H. R. 3180 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.

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.

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. .

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.