On September 11, 2017, the Ninth Circuit in US and State of Nevada ex rel. Welch v. My Left Foot Children’s Therapy, LLC, upheld the denial of the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration in a False Claims Act (FCA) relator case, holding that an employee-relator’s FCA claims did not fall within the scope of the arbitration agreement with her former employer.  The FCA claims were based on allegations that the employer had filed fraudulent Medicaid claims.

The Court first looked to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in determining that …