On Monday, Judge McMahon denied a series of outstanding post-trial motions in the long-running Omnicare litigation, in which the Government alleged under the False Claims Act (FCA) that Omnicare filed over 11.5 million false claims with government programs for prescription medication dispensed without a proper prescription. In April, the jury found for the Government, awarding over $130 million in damages. In July, the Court awarded $542 million in trebled damages against Omnicare and $165 million against both Omnicare and CVS.
After the jury verdict, Omnicare and CVS filed motions for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial. The motions primarily argued that the jury did not have “sufficient evidentiary basis to find” falsity, materiality and scienter under the FCA. After pointing to portions of the record that supported the jury’s findings, the Court explained that it didn’t need to address all of defendants’ numerous arguments regarding lack of evidence:
Omnicare mounts literally dozens of additional attacks on the evidence, but it is not necessary to lengthen this opinion by addressing each and every one of them. For the purposes of a Fed. R. Civ. P. 50 motion, as long as it is clear that the jury verdict was not “the result of sheer surmise and conjecture,” Omnicare’s Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law must be denied. The discussion in the preceding pages makes it clear that the jury’s verdict was not the result of sheer surmise and conjecture. It was a result of the jury’s acceptance of the Government’s theory (but only as to some of the allegedly false claims) and its rejection of Omnicare’s defenses. There was ample evidence to support both conclusions.