Student Note on Using the False Claims Act to Enforce Civil Rights Laws

Excerpt from: Disability Law (click for full article)

 

The use of the False Claims Act to enforce civil rights laws is an important and potentially promising trend for civil rights litigators.  Check out this new student note discussing that trend:  Ralph C. Mayrell, Note, Blowing the Whistle on Civil Rights: Analyzing the False Claims Act as an Alternative Enforcement Method for Civil Rights Laws, 91 Tex. L. Rev. 449 (2012).  

From the introduction:

The FCA offers significant benefits to civil rights plaintiffs. Plaintiffs’ (called “relators” in the FCA) damages, can be quite large—up to 30% of a maximum of triple the value of the contract or grant—and plaintiffs can also take away per-claim civil penalties as well as ask for attorneys’ fees. These significant damages should incentivize private attorneys to litigate these claims as well as disincentivize government entities from violating antidiscrimination statutes. And because the injured party under the FCA is the United States, institutional-change litigants do not face the standing problems they otherwise have to overcome under laws based on remedying individual injuries.