On August 31, 2015, highway contractors Trinity Industries, Inc. and Trinity Highway Products, LLC (collectively, Trinity) appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit a $663,360,750 final judgment entered against them under the federal False Claims Act (FCA). At the conclusion of a six-day trial that commenced on October 13, 2014, the jury rendered a unanimous verdict, finding Trinity “knowingly made, used, or caused to be made or used, a false record of statement material to a false or fraudulent claim” in violation of the FCA. The jury unanimously found that the U.S. government suffered damages in the amount of $175,000,000 as the result of Trinity’s FCA violations.
Continue Reading A Case to Watch: Highway Contractor Appeals $663M False Claims Act Judgment

Clipper Pipe & Service, Inc. v. The Ohio Cas. Ins. Co., 2015 Pa. LEXIS 1275 (PA  June 15, 2015)

The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania held that CASPA, 73 P.S. §§501-516, “does not apply to a construction project where the owner is a governmental entity.”  The decision once and for all resolved the issue of whether the Contractor and Subcontractor Payment Act (“CASPA”) applies to payment disputes between prime contractors and subcontractors on public works projects,  either instead of, or in addition to, the prompt payment provisions of the Commonwealth Procurement Code, 62 Pa.C.S. §§ 3931-3939 (commonly referred to as “the Prompt Payment Act”).Continue Reading Supreme Court of Pennsylvania Holds Contractor and Subcontractor Payment Act (“CASPA”) Inapplicable to Public Works Projects