State of California ex rel. Hunter Laboratories v. Quest Diagnostics, Inc., et al., Sacramento County Superior Court
CPM represented a whistleblower, Chris Riedel, who owned a small lab company, Hunter Laboratories of Campbell, California. CPM filed a qui tamaction in 2005. The California Attorney General’s office joined the case in late 2008. The lawsuit alleged that, despite state law requiring that California’s Medi-Cal program receive the lowest price for lab services, Quest Diagnostics, the largest lab in California, and LabCorp, the second largest, routinely billed California prices far above what it was charging others. The case settled in 2011, recovering $301 million in taxpayer money from the lab defendants, including $241 million from Quest Diagnostics, Inc. The $241 million settlement was the largest false claims act recovery in California history, and the largest single-state False Claims Act settlement ever in United States history.
