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The U.S. Supreme Court should affirm the government’s authority to dismiss a False Claims Act lawsuit after declining to intervene in the case, the AHA, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and American Health Care Association said in a friend-of-the-court brief filed today. 

“When the government investigates the allegations in a qui tam action and concludes that they lack legal or factual merit, the government serves the public interest by dismissing that action,” the brief states, noting the enormous number of meritless qui tam cases that clog the federal courts at enormous cost. Health care providers alone spend billions of dollars each year dealing with False Claims Act litigation, the brief notes, making participation in government health care programs a high-risk endeavor. “Validating the government’s discretion to dismiss False Claims Act cases brought in its name is good policy, even apart from being constitutionally required.”