Posted on 02/18/2017 12:02:03 PM PST by ColdOne
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed a final rule shortly before leaving her post that will effectively double penalties under the False Claims Act, which could stand to benefit trial lawyers, who overwhelmingly contribute campaign funds to Democrats.
Lynch, the attorney general under former President Barack Obama, signed the rule on January 13. It doubles penalties under the False Claims Act, the main tool used by the government to combat fraud from persons or companies. Under the 2015 Bipartisan Budget Act, it was required for Lynch's Justice Department to make annual inflation adjustments for civil penalties. Additionally, the department had to make a one-time aggregate penalty adjustment.
When making adjustments, the government typically goes back to the last instance amendments were made to the Act. In the case of the False Claims Act, the last time the statutes were changed was 2009. However, Lynch's Justice Department went back to 1986, the second-to-last time changes were made to statutes.
Due to Lynch's Justice Department referencing 1986 for its baseline year on the changes, inflation adjustments were calculated using the Consumer Price Index from that year to the present.
Penalties under the False Claims Act range from $5,500 to $11,000 per claim. The new penalties would range from $10,781 to $21,563 for penalties assessed after August 1, 2016 and $10,957 and $21,916 for penalties assessed after February 3, 2017.
(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed a final rule ...
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Can Sessions sign a final rule making her rule not so final?
When attorneys are panhandling on street corners; we will know that America is back on the right track.
Many of them are nothing but thieving leeches.
And then there are the really bad ones.
I worked with Army lawyers in the Army Judge Advocate General’s Corp (or JAG as we are called) and with civilian attorneys in Sodom on Puget Sound for 15 years after I retired. In civilian life, these attorneys were trial lawyers. I hated trial lawyers. Our firm did everything we could to screw people in the ground. If it was a company, firm, whatever, that had the bucks, they went for the jugular, to get every penny they could. They loved that 35% contingency fee they cut out of what the plaintiff’s won. Our firm made millions. The attorneys made millions. We got table scraps. Yeah, we made nice salaries, but nothing even remote close, not even in the same universe as attorneys. And, no, they could not have done the job without the staff to back them up. One of my attorneys did not even know how many copies were need, how to serve the opposition with the case, nothing, except how to draft the lawsuits up. And, they always say how smart attorneys are. Yup, book smart. Nothing else in the file could they do. Sorry attorneys out there, just the way it was in the big time law firm I worked for in Sodom.
[[double penalties under the False Claims Act,]]
nother couple of years and we’ll be right where france is now:
“France passes law imposing up to two years prison for running pro-life websites”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3526403/posts
So why does anything a crook who is no longer in office once signed need to be obeyed at all
And then people wonder why health care costs rise. Seems to me that Obamacare is only meant to cover the fees of trial lawyer who are nothing but communist trolling activists.
“And then people wonder why health care costs rise. Seems to me that Obamacare is only meant to cover the fees of trial lawyer who are nothing but communist trolling activists.”
And if this gets rescinded, we can look forward to the trial lawyers picketing the DOJ!
Wow...that is horrible. Thanks for that link.
That’s a shame you worked for such a firm. All our admin and paprprofessionals got a good share of both my contingency and our partnership earnings. Contingencies quarterly and profits annually, same time we did.
Congress needs to stop abdicating to the regulatory state it’s Constitutional authority, given to it alone, as the only author of federal law.
Regulatory agencies should have NO authority to write regulations, only to carry them out as written, in every degree by specific acts of Congress.
It would pay one well to understand what the False Claims act is and how it is enforced. The act, though originally called “Lincoln’s Law” became an effective tool in 1986 when it was revamped to permit private entities, “whistleblowers” to file suit on behalf of the federal government (qui tam provision). The most recent numbers report that the Federal government has recovered over $48 billion and the private parties have shared about $5.3 Billion in sharing settlements. This story smells of smoked herring.
The system is run by lawyers for lawyers. She’ll no doubt be among those cashing in.
Thank you for that info.
I can believe it.
There ARE ethical lawyers out there (I’ve even worked with them a number of times), but resisting the siren song must be an incredible burden at times. The ethical people won’t always haul in the biggest bucks. But the bible itself warns us that the unethical ones won’t get away forever with their game. In fact, at least if they won’t repent, their money will end up going “to those who pity the poor.”
But anyhow, what the law says means less than the discretion exercised by those who appeal to it. We talk about equal under the law, but the truth is that the law isn’t even brought to bear in nearly as many instances as it could theoretically be.
I hate suing someone’s pants off just to sue their pants off. Quite often their wrongdoing will redound upon them in more subtle ways. God’s Spirit can’t ever be cheated.
And yet one cannot allow one’s microcosm to unfairly shape the understanding of the macrocosm. If the profession will have its more honest people, but those more honest people won’t lift a finger to police its lest honest people, then God still frowns.
lest => less
So, the next time we have an activist that creates their own offending “noose” slung over their tree in the front yard, we can expect a larger fine? How about the black teenager that spray-paints his own garage with a slur? Bigger fine?
Yeah, right.
But AG Sessions will need new leadership and foot soldiers in the part of DoJ responsible for these cases. They are not to be trusted.
Trump can wipe this out with a stroke of the pen. Just because Congress made the rule, Lynch horribly messed up the adjustment to the point of FRAUD. Can be undone by Sessions.
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