Lockheed Whistleblower Gets Court to Revive Fraud Lawsuit (1)

Lockheed Martin Corp. must again defend against a whistleblower’s claims that the contractor improperly billed the government for military fighter aircraft parts, a federal appeals court said Monday.

A Texas federal district court erred when it concluded that the False Claims Act’s first-to-file bar precluded Maria Del Carmen Gamboa Ferguson’s suit, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled, in a split decision. The bar precludes suits when a person, other than the government, brings a related action based on facts underlying a pending action.

The district court “inappropriately overgeneralized” when it compared Ferguson’s case to another suit, ...