Maine Employment Lawyer Blog
The U.S. District Court of Maine has ordered AB Home Health Care (“AB Home”) to produce additional documents and communications that AB Home sought to shield from discovery in a False Claims Act (“FCA”) lawsuit the Maine Employee Rights Group (“MERG”) filed against it. The Complaint in this FCA lawsuit alleges that AB Home fraudulently billed MaineCare for in-home personal support services performed by unqualified individuals. These unqualified individuals did not undergo the training required for personal support specialists.
MERG’s client worked for AB Home from January 2014 to June 2015 and AB Home argued that the Court should shield from discovery any documents or communications that fell outside the dates of her employment. The Court rejected AB Home’s argument.
MERG attorney Chad Hansen obtained evidence in discovery that, of the eight personal support specialists AB Home employed during his client’s tenure with the company, five were hired before she began working there. Furthermore, AB Home could only provide training certifications for two of these eight personal support specialists. Also, Hansen uncovered evidence that at least one of AB Home’s personal support specialists continued to provide services without any evidence of receiving the requisite training after his client separated from AB Home and after the filing of the FCA lawsuit.