U.S. ex rel. Rector v. Bon Secours Richmond Health Corp. (Summary)

DISCOVERY/QUI TAM

U.S. ex rel. Rector v. Bon Secours Richmond Health Corp., No. 3:11-CV-38 (E.D. Va. Jan. 6, 2014)

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia granted in part and denied in part a health system’s motion for relief against a relator’s qui tam complaint. The health system had implemented a program to provide concierge services to one of its hospitals. The concierge service was to provide a wide array of services to doctors who referred their patients to the health system for diagnostic tests. The hospital had retained a temporary employment agency, which was co-owned by one of the health system’s managers, to provide personnel for the concierge service. The relator was employed at the employment agency and later hired by the hospital to be a concierge. Subsequently, the manager was fired by the hospital and he abandoned his employment agency, including computers containing sensitive information from past dealings with the hospital, and the hospital took no steps to secure the information from the agency, despite knowing that the business had closed. Later, the health system moved the court to order the relator to return all of the hospital’s data that he possesses.

The court found that the health system is likely to be prejudiced by the relator’s possession of the agency’s computers containing sensitive information shared by the health system and the agency. The information may not be reachable through the discovery process and it is difficult to determine whether the data is pertinent to the matter at hand because the court is unaware of the exact content of the data.