The United States has come a long way since the Civil War era.
A once splintered nation torn apart by infighting is now whole, although an ideological split over hot-button political issues continues to keep the country divided.
Aside from an end to slavery and a patching up of our national identity, another thing to come out of the Civil War, at least on the legislative front, was the passage of the False Claims Act.
The measure was enacted with the goal of fighting profiteering by those who supplied the Union Army with things such as weapons and ammunition.
The measure, also referred to as “Lincoln’s Law,” allowed the government to hold contractors liable for bad faith dealings.
The False Claims Act came about during a time when contractors took advantage of wartime dependence to defraud the U.S. Government by dealing faulty ammunition and weaponry, sick live stock and tainted food rations, according to a summary of the statute on the website of the law firm Messa & Associates.
Today, however, court reform advocates maintain that the statute is being overused, and at times misused, by both the federal government and those who sue on behalf of the government.
The issue was touched upon this week in the nation’s capital during the 14th Annual Legal Reform Summit of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Legal Reform. (The ILR owns Legal Newsline.)
The ILR contends that while the statute was well intentioned, it has since been turned into a “lucrative money machine for plaintiffs’ lawyers and their clients,” while simultaneously hurting businesses and U.S. taxpayers.
Keep reading this article at: http://legalnewsline.com/news/federal-government/245052-false-claims-act-overused-reform-advocates-say
