U.S. District Court for Southern District of Indiana Holds That Fed. R. Civ. P. Rule 9(b) Does Not Require Relator to Plead Allegations with Particularity for All of Twenty Defendants When Defendants Are Engaged Together in Same Schemes

In United States ex rel. Herron v. Indianapolis Neurosurgical Group. Inc., No. 1:06-cv-1778-JMS-DML, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23610 (S.D. Ind. Feb. 21, 2013), the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana found that the relators had met the pleading requirements of Fed. R. Civ. P. 9(b) in a qui tam action against twenty doctors and a medical practice group alleging three fraudulent billing schemes, notwithstanding the fact that, as stated by defendants, relators “lump” the individual defendants together into a “homogenous group.”   Id. at *8.  Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ruled that the relators could plead fraud with particularity “[d]espite not providing a specific example for every single Individual Defendant.”  Id. at *12. The court found it sufficient that the relators “allege widespread schemes among the Defendants, and provide detailed allegations of numerous examples for each scheme  . . . the allegations here are enough to put all of the Defendants on notice of what they need to defend against.”  Id.