mark radcliffe purdue pharma

On Nov. 17, Purdue Pharma alleged attorney Mark Hurt of Abingdon, Va., used information from a previous, unsuccessful whistleblower lawsuit against Purdue Pharma to file another through the plaintiffs wife and former coworker. Purdue initially contended that the Complaint failed to state a claim because Radcliffe's allegations merely showed "a scientific dispute . This furthers the public interests in encouraging a potential relator to disclose his allegations to the government as quickly as possible, before the government has an opportunity to discover the alleged wrongdoing through other means. J. Clin. Bahrani, 183 F. Supp. at 818. Radcliffe was a district sales manager for Purdue, laid off as part of a reduction in force in June 2005. ( Id. J.A. The qui tam provisions are designed to supplement government enforcement of the FCA by using financial incentives to encourage insiders privy to fraud on the government to disclose this inside knowledge and potentially prosecute violations. Green v. Serv. Davies requires that a determination be made as to whether a substantial public interest would be impaired by enforcement of the agreement. Id. 2002); see also Gold v. Morrison-Knudsen Co., 68 F.3d 1475, 1476-77 (2d Cir. & Training Trust Fund. Summary judgment is appropriate only if there are no material facts in dispute and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. When he raised the issue his supervisor assured him that the 2:1 ratio was correct. Protected by Google ReCAPTCHA. Purdue argues that Radcliffe has failed to plead fraud with particularity as required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b). J.A. 1039, 1043-47 (S.D.N.Y. This action was stayed for some time at the request of the federal government, which eventually declined to intervene, along with all of the thirteen state governments named in the Complaint. 3729-3733 (West 2003 & Supp.2008), and analogous state statutes, the relator Mark Radcliffe alleges that the defendants, Purdue Pharma, L.P. and Purdue Pharma, Inc. (collectively, "Purdue"), misrepresented to physicians the relative potency of . at 1277-78. and, accordingly, less expensive than MSContin" and the accuracy of "the 2:1 comparison of OxyContin to MSContin." (Information 20, United States v. Purdue Frederick Co., supra.) Virginia, Abingdon Division, declining to conclude that anything posted online would automaticallyconstitute a public disclosure. Joining her as a relator is Steven May, a former Purdue employee who worked under Mr. Radcliffe. (f)(2).) Redactions are denoted in brackets. Hall involved an employer who had been accused of fraud on the government by an employee. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. A doctor relying on the 2:1 ratio would initially prescribe half as much OxyContin as MS Contin, which, according to the relators, did cost less, Berger wrote. [2] To the extent that Radcliffe derived the allegations in his Complaint from either of these sources, these will be considered public disclosures in the news media. 2010). during the depositions of Mark and Angela Radcliffe and Steven May respecting commu nications between Relators and Mark Radcliffe and Relators and their attorneys with Mark . See Fed.R.Civ.P. While the court reasoned that the enforceability of the release should be governed by federal law because it arose under federal law, the court did not address any of the public policy concerns associated with qui tam suits or the FCA. formerly a sales representative for Purdue under Mark Radcliffe's supervision. BECKLEY, W.Va. - A Raleigh County man was sentenced today to five years in federal prison and ordered to pay a $25,000 fine for a witness tampering crime, announced United States Attorney Carol Casto. This line of reasoning has been adopted by the Eighth Circuit, Gebert, 260 F.3d at 916, and the Southern District of New York, DeCarlo, 937 F. Supp. 2006). Radcliffe v. Purdue Pharma L.P., 600 F.3d 319 (4th Cir. This case briefly mentions several sources "two previously filed lawsuits against defendant, as well as an Internet web page and a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article" and summarily concludes that "these constitute public disclosures." Thus, the exception created by Hall provides that a release entered into after the government has full knowledge of the allegations and an opportunity to investigate will be enforced to bar a subsequent qui tam suit. It is implausible to believe that doctors consistently used the 2:1 ratio as a starting point, prescribed significantly greater amounts as they titrated the dosage to the patients, and continued to believe OxyContin to be cost-effective based on the 2:1 ratio. Mark RADCLIFFE, Plaintiffs, v. PURDUE, Court:United States District Court, W.D. Purdue argues that Radcliffe was a bad actor who waited to file his qui tam complaint and, prior to doing so, attempted to settle with Purdue in exchange for an investment in a company he was starting. One of their attorneys is Mark Make your practice more effective and efficient with Casetexts legal research suite. Wilson, 528 F.3d at 299. In his employment with Purdue between 1996 and 2005, Radcliffe was responsible for marketing OxyContin to individual physicians and became familiar with Purdue's marketing claims about OxyContin's relative cost and potency, including the claim that there is a 2:1 equianelgesic ratio between OxyContin and MS Contin. Alcohol Found., Inc. v. Kalmanovitz Charitable Found., Inc., 186 F. Supp. Harrison v. Westinghouse Savannah River Co., 176 F.3d 776, 784 n. 5 (4th Cir. decision in United States ex rel. Springfield Terminal Ry. These terms included those related to the issues of relative potency and cost, as well as those that seem more related to the potential for abuse or the effects of withdrawal. This subsection includes disclosures made in "criminal hearings," as well as those made in "administrative investigations," but I cannot see that, nor have the parties asserted that, either of these classifications applies to the current situation. dismissing complaint because it did "not describe even a single instance in which a physician was influenced to prescribe [the drug] based on [the defendant's] misrepresentations, and where a claim was made by the pharmacist to the government". In doing so, the court relied on the test set forth in Town of Newton v. Rumery, 480 U.S. 386, 107 S.Ct. Congress deemed this necessary because of reluctance on the part of insiders to come forward with relevant knowledge of fraud as well as federal enforcement agencies' relative lack of resources to investigate and prosecute allegations of fraud, leaving some potentially significant cases unaddressed. On Nov. 17, the company moved to have the plaintiffs pay its legal fees under the fee-shifting provisions in the FCA. 458 (S.D.N.Y. See United States v. Purdue Frederick Co., 495 F. Supp. Wilson, 528 F.3d at 300-01 (alternations and internal quotations omitted); see Eberhardt v. Integrated Design Constr., Inc., 167 F.3d 861, 870 (4th Cir. After the action was filed, the United States investigated the qui tam relator's allegations, but ultimately chose not to intervene. Instead of the 2:1 ratio Purdue Pharma claimed, the actual ratio was more like 1.5:1, the whistleblowers said. The government began a lengthy investigation after the execution of the release and ultimately chose to intervene. Gilligan v. Medtronic, Inc., 403 F.3d 386, 389 (6th Cir. The final settlement in the criminal case did not contain any reference to the relative cost and potency issue and did not purport to settle Radcliffe's suit. In this qui tam action, the defendants have moved to dismiss on several grounds, including the jurisdictional bar based on prior public disclosures of the alleged false claims, the execution of a pre-filing general release by the relator, and a failure to plead fraud with particularity under Rule 9(b). 31 U.S.C.A. The court stated that the defendant "informed the [NRC] of Hall's concerns," but it does not necessarily follow that in doing so Hall was identified to the NRC. However, after the employee raised these concerns, the employer contacted the regulatory agency involved and apprised them of the allegations. While this would seem to be the case in Hall since the federal government had not only completed its investigation, but concluded that the allegations could not be substantiated, this does not mean that there are not other cases that the government may have investigated fully but determined that it would not prosecute on its own for a variety of reasons, such as the low amount of money involved compared to the cost of prosecution, the low likelihood of success, or the lack of government resources to pursue it. Apparently Radcliffe later experienced more doubts because in 2004 he sought legal advice and in January 2005 he anonymously contacted Randy Ramseyer, an Assistant United States Attorney for the Western District of Virginia, to gauge the government's interest in a claim against Purdue. 2d. 2d 1272, 1275-78 (D. Colo. 2002); United States ex rel. . He also refers to, but does not cite, a single-dose study supporting the 2:1 ratio that he was told about by his supervisors at Purdue. 1990)). to Mot. It has been held that disclosures made directly to relevant government officials, rather than to the public, can constitute public disclosures in administrative investigations when the disclosure is made "to a competent public official" "who has managerial responsibility for the very claims being made." at 960. In finding the release unenforceable, the court reasoned that the limited knowledge of the allegations held by the government did not negate the public interest in providing incentives for the relator to fully disclose inside information concerning the allegations to the government. Ramseyer recalls receiving a telephone call from a West Virginia attorney regarding a possible qui tam suit against Purdue at some point prior to September 27, 2005. the plaintiff-relator, mark radcliffe ("radcliffe"), filed a qui tam suit in the united states district court for the western district of virginia alleging that his former employer, purdue pharma, l.p. ("purdue"), defrauded the government by marketing its pain-relief drug, oxycontin, as a cheaper alternative to the drug it replaced, ms contin, Id. Grayson v. Pac. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants who argued that, as part of the release, the relator had bargained away his right to bring the qui tam suit and as a result could not demonstrate any personal stake in the outcome sufficient to satisfy Article III standing. ex rel. Rost v. Pfizer, Inc., 507 F.3d 720, 733 (1st Cir. Id. Counsel also stated that on July 28, 2005, she spoke to an attorney from the Department of Justice who expressed an interest in using electronic searches to identify documents [Redacted]. (Mem. On September 18 2014 Defendants hereinafter Purdue filed.20141009i18 Id. In addition to ruling the whistleblowers failed to sufficiently plead their allegations, Berger also found that their suit was barred by a rule that says whistleblowers cant bring suit over information that has already been made public. (T)here is no question that counsels pre-filing knowledge and investigations are imputed to his clients on the issue of whether there is a good-faith, non-frivolous basis for the allegations in a complaint. Reply to Resp. Supp. Id. Id. Because MS Contin and OxyContin were designed for chronic dosing, these physicians believed the 1:1 equianalgesic ratio was the appropriate one. While Purdue concedes that a defendant may be liable for inducing a third party to submit a false claim to the government, it argues that Radcliff's allegations do not meet the Rule 9(b) pleading requirements because he does not describe even a single instance in which a physician was influenced to prescribe OxyContin based on Purdue's misrepresentations, and where a claim for payment was made by the pharmacist to the government.