Last month, the US District Court for the District of Columbia delivered another blow to the “tainted claims” theory of False Claims Act (FCA) damages frequently espoused by the government and qui tam relators.

From the 1990s through 2004, the US Postal Service sponsored a professional cycling team led by Lance Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven consecutive times during that span shortly after surviving metastatic cancer. It was later revealed that Armstrong and his teammates had used performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) during the relevant time period. Armstrong ultimately was stripped of his titles and banned from the sport permanently. After years of denials, Armstrong publicly admitted his PED use in a 2013 interview with Oprah Winfrey.

In 2010, former Armstrong teammate Floyd Landis filed a qui tam FCA suit under seal against Armstrong, the team’s owner (Tailwind Sports Corporation) and others. United States ex rel. Landis v. Tailwind Sports Corp., et al., No. 1:10-cv-00976 (CRC) (U.S. Dist. Ct. D.D.C.). The government intervened against certain defendants, including Armstrong, shortly after the 2013 interview aired. The government and Landis seek to recover as damages the entire $32 million the Postal Service paid to Tailwind during the last four years of the sponsorship, trebled to nearly $100 million, on the grounds that the defendants sought payment while actively concealing Armstrong’s and his teammates’ PED use, which violated both the rules of the sport and the Postal Service’s sponsorship agreement—thereby violating the FCA.
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