US EX REL. S. PRAWER & CO. v. Fleet Bank, Civ. No. 93-165-P-C.

• Decision Date: 30 June 1993
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 93-165-P-C.
• Citation: 825 F. Supp. 339
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, ex rel. S. PRAWER & COMPANY, Gilbert Prawer, and Harvey Prawer, Plaintiffs, v. FLEET BANK OF MAINE RECOLL MANAGEMENT CORPORATION, Verrill & Dana, a law partnership, P. Benjamin Zuckerman, Anne M. Dufour and Amy Bierbaum, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Maine

825 F. Supp. 339

UNITED STATES of America, ex rel. S. PRAWER & COMPANY, Gilbert Prawer, and Harvey Prawer, Plaintiffs, v. FLEET BANK OF MAINE RECOLL MANAGEMENT CORPORATION, Verrill & Dana, a law partnership, P. Benjamin Zuckerman, Anne M. Dufour and Amy Bierbaum, Defendants.

Civ. No. 93-165-P-C.

United States District Court, D. Maine.

June 30, 1993.

Jeffrey Bennett, Herbert H. Bennett & Assoc., P.A., Portland, ME, for all plaintiffs.

No appearances were entered on behalf of any of the defendants since service was not made.

MEMORANDUM AND SUA SPONTE ORDER OF DISMISSAL

GENE CARTER, Chief Judge.

Private party Plaintiffs herein have filed a "qui tam," so called, action against Defendants herein under 31 United States Code sections 3729 et seq., the so-called "False Claims Act." The action is one brought by S. Prawer & Company, Gilbert Prawer, and Harvey Prawer, as private persons, for their benefit and that of the United States Government pursuant to 31 United States Code section 3730(b)(1). The Complaint makes it clear that the claims asserted herein are based upon allegations or transactions which are the subject of a civil suit pending in this Court, Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation v. S. Prawer & Company, et al., Civil No. 92-379-P-C, 1992 WL 390689.

The False Claims Act provides later on in section 3730, however:

In no event may a person bring an action under subsection (b) which is based upon allegations or transactions which are the subject of a civil suit or an administrative civil money penalty proceeding in which the government is already a party.

31 U.S.C. § 3730(e)(3).¹ The Court FINDS that the Government is, for purposes of the foregoing statutory provision, already a party, in the person of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in its capacity as a corporate entity, to the foregoing civil suit, Civil No. 92-379-P-C on the docket of this Court. The Court FURTHER FINDS that the claims set forth herein arise out of the allegations and transactions already at issue in Civil No. 92-379-P-C. The private party Plaintiffs in fact assert as defenses, somewhat obliquely, in their briefing of pending motions in that case most of the legal theories that underlie their allegations in this case. The Court has every reason to believe that any claim made against the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation of a false or fraudulent nature will be fully subject to litigation and adjudication, if required, in the pending civil action. The effort to inject new claims based upon the False Claims Act into the internecine warfare now ongoing in the pending civil matter is, in the view of the Court, an opportunistic attempt by Defendants in the civil...