Public Interest Briefs
Public Interest Briefs track CLIPI’s filings, funding, coalition wins, showing how each step drives policy change and nurtures advocates.
At the Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, ophthalmologist Dr. Paul E. Michelson became outraged when he realized a fellow physician was apparently performing unnecessary or improper surgery on elderly patients and then charging Medicare for the procedures.
Outside Boulder, Colorado, tool and dye maker J. David Navarette, working for Rockwell International under defense and energy department contracts, supervised a high-security shop that was supposed to be building scale models of top-secret military weapons. Instead, it spent much of its time making commemorative plaques, paper weights, and other items.
Both men knew that what was happening must be wrong; taxpayers’ money was apparently being misused and neither of them could just sit by and do nothing about it.
Enter CLIPI and the False Claims Act. Through newspaper accounts, both Michelson and Navaratte learned they could sue government contractors who willfully overcharged for services and also could win treble damages on behalf of the American taxpayer – while personally obtaining a percentage of these funds for their work as “whistleblowers” – through something called the False Claims Act.
CLIPI’s co-director John Phillips lobbied hard to get the Abraham Lincoln-era law updated in Congress two years ago, and the press quoted Phillips about how the new false claims law worked, leading both men to call CLIPI for representation.
Last Fall, after much background investigation into what would obviously be sensitive cases involving a prestigious medical institute and a classified defense operation, CLIPI went public with the first two of its lawsuits under the False Claims Act.
“Defense and health care are the No. 1 and No. 2 largest segments of our national budget, representing billions of dollars annually,” said Phillips. “These first two cases involve not only evidence of mischarging the government, but they also show how poorly our private defense and health care establishments are policed by responsible federal officials.”
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Winter ’88 briefs reveal Scripps Medicare and Rockwell defense fraud suits, 60 Minutes spotlight, State Farm female surcharge challenge, Chevron bias case, Ballona wetlands push, and Medi-Cal recovery fight.
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