Guttman Buschner LLP

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CLE: Litigating False Claims Cases Through Trial

Tue, November 10, 2026 at 2:00PM EDT, 1 hour, Register

There was a time when government declination of a False Claims Case most likely signaled the end of case.

Today, with over 600 cases filed each year, the federal and state governments are counting on Relator’s counsel to carry the ball and litigate in the absence of intervention.  

Private pursuit of these cases has broken new ground in applying new fact patterns settled FCA principles.         

This one-hour seminar will teach participants to reverse engineer a case; anticipate at the filing stage what a trial will look like, and from investigation to pretrial litigation, assume a trial is inevitable.

Learning Objectives: 

  1. Learn pleading and pretrial rules particular to the FCA
  2. Understand the essential evidentiary rules necessary to put a case together
  3. Explore trial techniques that will create efficiencies in proof

Faculty:

Reuben Guttman

Reuben Guttman is a founding member of Guttman, Buschner and Brooks PLLC. His practice involves complex litigation and class actions. He has represented clients in claims brought under the Federal False Claims Act, securities laws, the Price Anderson Act, Department of Energy statutes and regulations, the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN), Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and various employment discrimination, labor and environmental statutes. He has also tried and/or litigated claims involving fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, antitrust, business interference and other common law torts.

The International Business Times has called Mr. Guttman “one of the world’s most prominent whistleblower attorneys.” He has served as counsel in some of the largest recoveries under the False Claims Act. Mr. Guttman served as lead counsel in a series of cases resulting in the recovery of more than $30 million under the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act. Mr. Guttman is the author and/or editor of numerous articles, book chapters, and technical publications.

In addition to his writings, Mr. Guttman has testified before committees of the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate on the Asbestos Hazard Emergency Response Act (AHERA). Mr. Guttman earned his law degree at Emory University School of Law, where he has been a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the Emory University School of Law Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution and has been a Team Leader for the school’s Trial Techniques Program. He is a faculty member of the National Institute for Trial Advocacy and Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

He is currently a Professional Lecturer at the American University School of Public Affairs where he teaches Equal Protection/Constitutional Law. He is co-author of the text Pretrial Advocacy (NITA/Wolters-Kluwer 2021 with Professor JC Lore) and he has published more than 100 articles.

Traci L. Buschner

Traci L. Buschner is a founding member of Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC. A former state prosecutor, Ms. Buschner has spent nearly 30 years representing plaintiffs in complex litigation ranging from class actions to government contract fraud. She has been involved in multi-million-dollar recoveries on behalf of workers asserting claims under numerous federal statutes and has handled some of the largest successful False Claims Act actions, bringing billions of dollars to the United States Government. 

Ms. Buschner has represented some of the nation’s largest labor unions and their members. On behalf of the Oil, Chemical & Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW), AFL-CIO involving environmental litigation which led to Secretary of Energy, William Richardson, to cancel a project to recycle radioactive nickel at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee K-25 Nuclear Weapons Complex. 

Ms. Buschner currently serves as President-Elect of the Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. (DC-TLA) and as the Chair of Miami University’s Pre-Law Alumni Board. 

She has also served as a faculty member for Emory University Law School’s Trial Techniques Program (2011, 2012, 2014 and 2016) and for National Institute for Trial Advocacy’s (“NITA”) Deposition Skills seminar in Seattle, Washington. 

Ms. Buschner has been recognized for several years, by Washingtonian Magazine, as a top Whistleblower Lawyer. Her work on the Abbott False Claims Act case at Grant & Eisenhofer was featured in The National Law Journal, “Plaintiffs’ Hot List” (2011-2012).

Publications:

Chapter Co-Author, “Remote Advocacy:  A Guide to Survive and Thrive” published by NITA 2020 (e-book).

Co-Author, “Patients Suffer from Drug Industry’s Chronic Greed,” Wall Street Journal MarketWatch (August 7, 2013) 

 Co-Author, “Taking the Next Step in Pharma Fraud,” American Constitution Society Blog (May 8, 2012).

“Unfortunately, the Basic Problems Remain Unfixed,” The Environmental Forum, Volume 17, No. 6, November/December 2000.

This course includes:

  • Certificate of completion
  • CLE credits and reporting (if applicable)
  • Live Q&A with faculty
  • Desktop & mobile access

To register or for more information visit: https://www.lawline.com/course/litigating-false-claims-cases-through-trial

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Big fines and settlements barely dent cancer drugmakers’ revenues, fail to deter wrongdoing

An ICIJ review found nearly $1.7 billion in settlements and fines over a 15 year period. But experts said many companies see the payouts as the cost of doing business.

By Sydney P. Freedberg, Brenda Medina, Agustin Armendariz and Jesús Escudero
September 2, 2026

The two girls grew up five blocks apart in Mdantsane township, South Africa, and they were only distant friends until cancer pulled them together many years later. Babalwa Malgas, then 35, had just opened her law office when she learned she had breast cancer. Two years later, her neighbor Tobeka Daki received the same diagnosis. Both were single moms with two boys, and they bonded over their new, shared disease. Malgas said they talked about the “challenges of dating new people — how to explain, whether to disclose prior or not. The common interest of not wanting reconstruction. Fears of leaving our children.”

In 2013, Daki’s oncologist told her she needed a mastectomy, chemotherapy and Herceptin, a cancer drug produced by the Swiss company Roche, to improve her chances of survival. But because of the cost, she couldn’t afford the medication.

As Malgas explained, the two became “sisters” in a campaign against the high cost of cancer medicines. Their yearslong fight brought together various nonprofit advocacy groups that ramped up pressure on the government and Roche to reform patent laws. They picketed outside Roche’s Johannesburg office, demanding the company drop the price of Herceptin, which by 2016 cost around $36,000 for a year’s supply, about four times South Africa’s average household income.

Daki’s cancer eventually spread to her spine, and the 49-year-old health club receptionist died at home in November 2016. Malgas left court early that day to see her friend. “But I was 30 minutes late,” she said.

Daki’s death inspired Malgas and other activists to continue pushing for equitable medical treatment and healthcare justice. Their campaign triggered a government probe into alleged excessive pricing of Herceptin.

“Our slogan was: My cancer, your profit,” said Malgas, whose own cancer returned in the midst of their campaign. “We learned of greed from Roche.” But she said their struggle went beyond Roche.

For many decades, companies making cancer drugs have exploited ethically dubious practices that have generated great fortunes for shareholders but sometimes priced out patients who desperately need the medicines. Now a review of enforcement actions around the world by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists highlights yet another manifestation of a broken global healthcare system: Some cancer drugmakers face allegations of wrongdoing — again and again — and are not deterred when they have to pay fines or large settlement payments.

Further adding to the industry’s generally wretched reputation, cancer drugmakers have sometimes crossed the line with such documented practices as exploiting the patent system to stifle competition, promoting higher dosages than necessary, taking advantage of industry regulatory shortcuts, and breaching criminal or civil statutes. That’s yet another fallout that can affect patients and raise the expenses of taxpayers and healthcare systems.

This story is a follow-up to ICIJ’s Cancer Calculus investigation, which documented how Merck & Co. kept the price of its blockbuster cancer drug Keytruda high, straining healthcare systems around the world and delaying cheaper versions of the drug from reaching hundreds of thousands of cancer patients in the coming years.

To examine enforcement actions in the cancer drug industry, ICIJ reviewed criminal and civil cases in 31 countries. ICIJ relied on public information and a variety of datasets collated by the nonprofit accountability groups Public Citizen and Good Jobs First, as well as a collection of global anti-competition cases compiled by Brazilian researcher Pedro Gomes Lacerda and Sao Paulo-based lawyer Luiz A. Azevedo de Almeida Hoffmann.

Among the highlights of this review, in the past decade, authorities in seven countries have accused Roche of misleading doctors about a cancer medicine and colluding with another drugmaker. The company paid $14 million to settle charges in Romania that it thwarted competition to three cancer drugs, including Herceptin. An antitrust case in Belgium and the  South Africa case of alleged excessive pricing are underway.

For its part, the drug giant Novartis agreed to pay more than $51 million to the U.S. Justice Department in 2020 to resolve kickback allegations regarding the kidney cancer drug Afinitor and another medicine, and pledged to reform its business practices — the third time it had made that promise.

What these companies are doing … they’re basically paying a fee for the license to break the law. –attorney Reuben Guttman

And Celgene Corp., now controlled by Bristol Myers Squibb, paid $280 million to U.S. and state governments in 2017 to settle allegations that it had improperly promoted the medicines Revlimid and Thalomid to treat multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, and a range of other cancers beyond the uses then approved by the Food and Drug Administration. That was one of the largest settlements ever related to a cancer drug. It was the first for Celgene, but not for Bristol Myers, which acquired Celgene in 2019. And for Bristol Myers, it wouldn’t be the last. The New Jersey manufacturer paid $55 million in a multi-state settlement of anti-competition charges relating to a cancer drug in 2003; in 2024 it paid $2.7 million to settle anti-competition charges in Israel concerning yet another multiple myeloma drug.

“What these companies are doing … they’re basically paying a fee for the license to break the law,” said Reuben Guttman, an attorney for the whistleblower whose disclosures led to the $280 million Revlimid settlement.

Bristol Myers did not respond to requests for comment, but its Celgene unit previously denied wrongdoing. Roche has strongly denied it abused its market dominance and called its practices proper and legal. The company declined to comment on ongoing enforcement matters. Novartis said it is committed to operating with integrity and in compliance with laws and regulations.

In all, ICIJ’s analysis of enforcement actions found that between 2010 and 2025, 12 makers of cancer drugs settled 25 cases with authorities in 10 countries. Eleven of those companies paid fines or made settlements totaling nearly $1.7 billion. The alleged violations ranged from deceptive marketing and kickbacks to illegal tactics to block competition and keep prices high.

These payments and fines to settle allegations of wrongdoing barely dent the companies’ revenues, representing just one-third of 1% of the nearly $696 billion the firms accrued in the years the deals were made.

Cancer drug makers’ settlement payments often represent less than 1% of revenue

ICIJ analyzed enforcement actions tied to cancer drugs from 2010 to 2025, as found in SEC filings and annual reports. Percentages compare the settlement amounts paid by the companies to the revenue the drugmakers generated the year of the settlement.

CompanyCancer drug(s)YearCountrySettlement% of Annual Revenue
Clovis Oncology, Inc.Roci2018U.S.$20.0M20.97%
Celgene Corp.Revlimid, Thalomid2017U.S.$280.0M2.15%
Astellas Pharma Inc.Xtandi2019U.S.$100.0M.84%
Novartis AGGleevec, Tasigna2015U.S.$370.0M.73%
Roche GroupAvastin2020France$454.2M.71%
Incyte, Corp.Jakafi2016U.S.$12.6M.42%
Astellas Pharma Inc.Tarceva2016U.S.$33.5M.27%
Roche GroupAvastin2014Italy$123.6M.23%
Aspen Pharmacare Holdings LimitedAlkeran, Leukeran, Purinethol, Thioguanine2016Italy$5.9M.19%
Roche GroupAvastin2020France$70.5M.11%
Amgen, Inc.Kyprolis2019U.S.$24.8M.11%
Novartis AGAfinitor2020U.S.$51.3M.10%
Astellas Pharma Inc. + Roche Group*Tarceva2016U.S.$67.0M.10%
Bristol Myers Squibb Co.Revlimid, Thalomid2020U.S.$34.0M.08%
Roche GroupTarceva2016U.S.$33.5M.06%
Eli Lilly and Co.Gemzar2015Brazil$11.9M.06%
Pfizer, Inc.Sutent, Inlyta2018U.S.$23.9M.06%
Roche GroupRituxan2011U.S.$20.0M.04%
Roche GroupMabthera, Herceptin2019Romania$10.3M.02%
Novartis AGAvastin2023Belgium$3.0M.006%
Roche GroupTarceva2019Romania$3.7M.006%
Bristol Myers Squibb Co.Imnovid (Pomalyst)2024Israel$2.7M.006%
AstraZeneca PlcZoladex2022South Korea$767.0K.002%

*The $67 million 2016 Tarceva settlement amount was split evenly between the drugmakers for the purpose of these calculations. In some cases, non-cancer drugs were also part of settlements. Cases that resulted in no settlement payment are not included in this visualization.

For more information, see ICIJ’s Cancer Calculus here, https://projects.icij.org/investigations/the-cancer-calculus/charts/.

Reshma Ramachandran, an assistant professor at Yale School of Medicine, has studied kickbacks in the pharmaceutical industry. She said the settlements are “effectively a slap on the wrist that the companies largely ignore.”

“As they amount to just a fraction of their revenues, there’s little incentive for the companies to change behaviors,” she said. “They just account for this as the cost of doing business, regardless of the harms it brings to patients.”

The cancer drug-related settlements reviewed by ICIJ are only a small part of the overall cases these companies resolved. Eleven of the 12 firms accumulated $15.4 billion in total healthcare fines and settlements from 2010 to 2025, according to data gathered by Good Jobs First. The drugmakers posted more than $491 billion in revenues just in their latest fiscal year.

The haze of settlements and fines leaves cancer survivors like Babalwa Malgas of South Africa and Beth Kitchin of Birmingham, Ala., reeling from the consequences.

Kitchin, 62, a retired professor of nutrition, loved to jog and hike, practiced yoga and was healthy until an MRI in 2021 revealed tumors in her legs that turned out to be a type of leukemia. She received a stem cell transplant, but when it led to a serious side effect — donor cells began attacking healthy cells — her doctors prescribed a costly medicine called Jakafi.

During an interview, she held up a bottle of “teeny, tiny” pills. “That’s like a  $300 pill right there,” she said. “It’s a game.” Although her insurance covered most of the cost, Kitchin said she had substantial out-of-pocket expenses.

Incyte Corp., the Delaware-based maker of Jakafi, agreed in 2021 to pay $12.6 million to resolve Justice Department allegations that it paid kickbacks to a charitable foundation to increase prescriptions of Jakafi by covering the copays of patients who were ineligible for the drug. Incyte did not return requests for comment but previously denied wrongdoing. Kitchin said she was unaware that the medicine had been subject to an alleged violation until talking to ICIJ.

With their medical breakthroughs and lifesaving treatments, pharmaceutical companies have brought hope to many. But the frequent rule breaking and illegal conduct show a troubling glimpse of what healthcare has become. As cancer rates climb throughout the world, the giants of an industry poised to save lives have become increasingly, if not untouchable, unstoppable in putting profits before patients.

‘Profits over following the law’

ICIJ’s review found that cancer drug companies that paid fines or made settlement payments rarely admitted to wrongdoing. Instead, if they settled, their explanations sometimes centered on wanting to avoid lengthy, expensive litigation.

The review revealed that there are few penalties, if any, in cancer drug cases more severe than civil and criminal fines. Rarely are individual directors or officers held accountable, and no pharmaceutical company in ICIJ’s review appears on several lists of firms barred from government business.

In a few cases, authorities overturned or reduced penalties, or companies paid no fine at all. Merck, for example, avoided a fine in Austria after allegations that the company engaged in anti-competitive behavior relating to a brain cancer drug. Fifteen years earlier, Schering-Plough Corp., which Merck later acquired, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to settle a U.S. case citing the same drug.

Rick Claypool, research director at Public Citizen, a nonprofit watchdog group, said “apparent repeat offenses” by the largest pharmaceutical companies are evidence of weak enforcement. “We see this pattern again and again,” Claypool said. “If corporations don’t face consequences for violating the law — or if the consequences are costs that are easily absorbed — then corporations will prioritize profits over following the law.”

In 2022, a separate ICIJ investigation found that the growing global scale of corporate leniency agreements allowed large companies in virtually all industries to avoid serious punishment for criminal and civil violations. Settlements known in the U.S. as deferred prosecution agreements and non-prosecution agreements often resulted in repeat offenses and rarely involved punishment of senior executives.

Source: International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, https://www.icij.org/investigations/cancer-calculus/big-fines-and-settlements-barely-dent-cancer-drugmakers-revenues-fail-to-deter-wrongdoing/

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Winning at Mediation: Reading Both Sides, Using the Mediator, and Closing Hard Cases

Program Summary

Litigators are trained to persuade a judge or jury that the facts compel a particular result, a discipline that can proceed without ever asking why the other side refused to settle. Mediation rewards the opposite instincts. It demands diplomacy, listening, and the capacity to read both your client’s concerns and opposing counsels, then locate the opening that closes a case the parties believed unresolvable. As court-ordered mediation becomes a routine condition of moving a case forward and clients press harder on cost and finality, attorneys who carry trial reflexes into the mediation room forfeit leverage and stall resolutions that were within reach. This one-hour program, led by former federal judge Mary Ellen Williams and Washington, D.C. trial lawyer Reuben Guttman of Resolute Systems, shows counsel how to change gears, deploy the advocacy skills that resolve seemingly impossible disputes, use the mediator deliberately, and prepare clients for both voluntary and court-ordered proceedings. Attendees leave able to advocate for settlement rather than against it.

Live Video-Broadcast: August 27, 2026

1 – 2:00 PM EST    12 – 1:00 PM CST    11 AM – 12:00 PM MST    10 – 11:00 AM PST  

What Will You Learn

Attorneys will learn how to change gears for mediation, identify the advocacy skills needed to resolve seemingly unresolvable disputes, and find openings that lead to resolution.

What Will You Gain

They will gain the ability to best use the mediator, prepare a client for mediation, and understand the difference between voluntary and court-ordered mediation.

Key topics to be discussed:

  • Litigation defined
    Litigation persuades a judge or jury by matching facts to law.
  • Mediation defined
    Mediation is problem solving, an exercise in diplomacy.
  • Core skills
    Mediation involves listening, creativity, and reading the concerns of both parties.
  • Flexible resolution
    Resolution may not flow from precise application of law or facts.
  • Imperfect outcome
    Mediation resolves the impossible with a result neither side finds perfect.
  • Dispute resolution
    Resolute Systems provides nationwide dispute resolution services.

Date / Time: August 27, 2026

  • 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm Eastern
  • 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm Central
  • 11:00 am – 12:00 pm Mountain
  • 10:00 am – 11:00 am Pacific

Closed-captioning available.

Agenda

SESSION 1 – Changing Gears from Trial Advocacy to Mediation | 1:00pm – 1:15pm

This session examines how attorneys shift from courtroom persuasion to collaborative problem solving, explaining why mediation rewards diplomacy and listening over rigid application of facts and law, and how counsel recalibrates once settlement, not victory, becomes the objective.

SESSION 2 – Advocacy Skills for the Unresolvable Dispute | 1:15pm – 1:30pm

This session identifies the advocacy skills required to resolve disputes that appear hopeless, showing how counsel reads the concerns of both clients and opposing parties to locate openings that move far-apart positions toward a workable resolution.

SESSION 3 – Working with the Mediator | 1:30pm – 1:45pm

This session explains how counsel can best use the mediator as a strategic resource, framing positions, communicating through a neutral party, and leveraging the mediator’s role to break impasse and move the parties toward a workable resolution.

SESSION 4 – Preparing the Client and the Process | 1:45pm – 2:00pm

This session addresses how attorneys prepare clients for the mediation setting and distinguishes voluntary mediation from court-ordered proceedings, clarifying how posture and expectations differ and how counsel adjusts preparation and strategy for each.

Click Here to register or for more information: https://federalbarcle.org/product/winning-at-mediation-reading-both-sides-using-the-mediator-and-closing-hard-cases/

Speakers

Mary Ellen Coster Williams, Mediator and arbitrator | Resolute Systems, LLC

Mary Ellen Coster Williams is a full-time mediator and arbitrator with Resolute Systems, drawing on two decades on the federal bench. She left the United States Court of Federal Claims in July 2023 after a distinguished judicial career to devote herself to alternative dispute resolution. At the court, she handled many mediations in complex civil cases for her colleagues and earned a reputation as a go-to mediator, known for resolving disputes that appear intractable.

  • Education & Credentials

Mary Ellen Williams received her J.D. from Duke University School of Law, where she served on the Editorial Board of the Duke Law Journal. She earned a combined degree from Catholic University, graduating summa cum laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Greek and Latin and a Master’s degree in Latin. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received the President’s Award to the Outstanding Undergraduate Woman, the university’s highest honor for leadership and scholarship.

  • Recognition & Leadership

Mary Ellen Williams has been recognized repeatedly for her service. The United States Court of Federal Claims honored her with an Award for Outstanding Service to the Court and the Champion of Justice Award in 2018. Duke Law School presented its Charles S. Murphy Award for Achievement in Public Service in 2017. She was elected a Life Fellow of the American Bar Foundation in 1985, served on the ABA Board of Governors, and chaired the ABA’s Section of Public Contract Law.

  • Professional Involvement

Mary Ellen Williams remains deeply engaged in professional organizations. She serves in the ABA House of Delegates, on the Council of the Section of Public Contract Law, and on the Content Advisory Board for the Intellectual Property Law Section’s publications. She has served the Bar Association of the District of Columbia as Foundation president, Trustee, and board member. As an educator, she has taught at Catholic University and Johns Hopkins University and lectured extensively on civil trial practice, mediation, and discovery.

  • Experience

Appointed to the United States Court of Federal Claims in July 2003, Mary Ellen Williams presided over high-dollar matters involving government contracts, intellectual property, bid protests, Fifth Amendment takings, tax, and class actions, and handled extensive bench trials and discovery disputes. She previously served 14 years as an administrative judge on the General Services Administration Board of Contract Appeals. Earlier, she was a partner at Janis, Schuelke and Wechsler and an Assistant United States Attorney in the Department of Justice.

Reuben A. Guttman, Mediator and arbitrator | Resolute Systems, LLC

Reuben A. Guttman is a founding member of Guttman Buschner LLP in Washington, D.C. His practice centers on complex litigation, class actions, fraud, antitrust, and False Claims Act cases. Over his career, he has litigated and tried cases resulting in significant whistleblower recoveries. He is widely recognized as one of the country’s foremost False Claims Act and whistleblower attorneys. In addition to his practice, Mr. Guttman teaches trial advocacy and contributes scholarship on legal and public policy issues.

  • Education & Credentials

Reuben A. Guttman earned his Juris Doctor from Emory University School of Law in 1985 and received a Bachelor of Arts in American History from the University of Rochester in 1981. In addition to practicing law, he serves in academic roles including as a Senior Fellow and Adjunct Professor at the Emory University School of Law Center for Advocacy and Dispute Resolution, where he teaches and participates in trial advocacy training programs.

  • Recognition & Leadership

Mr. Guttman has been recognized within the legal profession for his work in whistleblower and complex litigation matters. Media coverage and legal publications have described him as a leading attorney in whistleblower litigation, and he has been named a “Top Lawyer” by Washingtonian Magazine. He has also served in leadership roles in legal and policy organizations, including election to the Board of Directors of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy, and has participated in national and international programs focused on advocacy and legal training.

  • Professional Involvement

Beyond his litigation practice, Mr. Guttman is actively engaged in legal education and scholarship. He has lectured domestically and internationally, including at universities in China and through U.S. State Department programs training judges and practitioners in trial advocacy. He has also contributed commentary and articles on law, governance, and public policy.

  • Experience

Mr. Guttman’s practice spans complex commercial disputes, class actions, and whistleblower cases involving government fraud and regulatory violations. He has served as lead counsel in major False Claims Act matters, securing significant recoveries in pharmaceutical and financial fraud settlements. His work has addressed unlawful drug marketing, fraudulent mortgage assignments, and government contracting misconduct. He has also litigated employment and labor matters, including federal labor standards, workplace safety, and cases affecting workers in the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

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On-Demand CLE: Why Mediation Fails and How to Fix It: A Strategic, Political, and Practical Approach to Case Resolution

Mediation is one of the most powerful tools in a litigator’s arsenal — but only when approached with strategic intent. This course goes beyond the mechanics of the mediation process to examine the political, psychological, and practical forces that determine whether a case resolves or falls apart. Drawing on decades of complex litigation experience, Reuben Guttman walks practitioners through how to diagnose why parties come to the table, how to select and prepare the right mediator, how to identify and overcome roadblocks, and how to reframe settlement in terms that resonate with clients and opposing parties alike. Attendees will leave with a sharper understanding of the hidden dynamics that drive — or derail — case resolution, and concrete strategies for making mediation work.

Click here for more information or to purchase this On Demand CLE, Why Mediation Fails and How to Fix It: A Strategic, Political, and Practical Approach to Case Resolution (On-Demand) – LPCLE –.

Principles

  • Successful Mediation Begins Long Before the Session
  • Settlement Is Driven by People, Politics, and Interests—Not Just Legal Merits
  • Effective Negotiation Requires Adaptability and Strategic Communication
  • Professionalism Creates Better Outcomes

Syllabus

  1. Why Parties Mediate — Identifying the real reasons parties seek mediation, from communication breakdowns and merit disputes to settlement validation and opposition research
  2. Mediator Selection — Key criteria for choosing an effective mediator, including credibility with opposing counsel, persistence, subject matter familiarity, and the ability to navigate roadblocks
  3. Understanding Case Baggage — How case type affects settlement dynamics, from highly polarizing claims (fraud, discrimination, family law) to cases more naturally suited to resolution (negligence, breach of contract)
  4. Insured vs. Uninsured Defendants — How insurance coverage shapes the emotional and economic dynamics of negotiation on the defense side
  5. Recognizing and Overcoming Roadblocks — Common barriers to settlement, including plaintiffs reluctant to part with their case, unrealistic damages models, parties overconfident in their own positions, attorney-client control issues, and adversarial lawyer dynamics
  6. The Politics of Bargaining — Mapping where negotiation actually happens: within each side, between counsel, and between attorney and client; why mediators must understand these internal politics
  7. Reframing Settlement for the Client — How to translate dollar figures into concrete, meaningful terms that connect with a client’s real-world goals and priorities
  8. The Corporate Rubik’s Cube — Analyzing how settlement or verdict affects a corporate defendant’s external exposure (further litigation, securities risk, regulatory scrutiny, reputational harm) and internal dynamics (profit center allocation, accountability)
  9. Reverse Engineering the Settlement — Working backward from a realistic resolution: who controls the decision, how settlement impacts the business, and how even contentious disputes get reduced to a business calculation
  10. Choosing the Right Forum — Comparing in-person, remote, and shuttle diplomacy formats, and evaluating which approach best fits the case and the parties
  11. Preparing and Educating the Mediator — Strategies for getting the mediator up to speed efficiently, including deselecting extraneous facts, focusing on dispositive issues, and using timelines and witness cheat sheets
  12. Learning Through Mediation — Using the mediation session itself as an intelligence-gathering opportunity to pressure-test facts, legal theories, and unanticipated defenses
  13. Zealous vs. Offensive Advocacy — Drawing the line between effective fact-based advocacy and conduct that poisons the process; how to inoculate the room against information that is difficult to receive
  14. Professionalism and Maintaining Relationships — Why the relationship with opposing counsel outlasts any single case, and why professionalism is the foundation of effective dispute resolution

Reuben Guttman, Esq.

Reuben Guttman, Esq. is a founding member of Guttman Buschner LLP and mediator with Resolute Systems who brings decades of complex litigation experience across fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, antitrust, environmental, and statutory claims. He has recovered billions of dollars for whistleblowers and the federal government, with qui tam settlements ranking among the largest in False Claims Act history, and serves as an Adjunct Professorial Instructor at American University, faculty member of the National Institute of Trial Advocacy, and Fellow of the American Bar Foundation.

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State-backed whistleblower suit claims neglect in Delaware prison care

A whistleblower lawsuit that has been hidden from public view for nearly three years claims a private contractor paid hundreds of millions of dollars to provide healthcare to prisoners in Delaware covered up deficiencies in care that neglected, maimed, and caused undue suffering to people imprisoned by the state.

Now, Delaware’s Attorney General is joining that whistleblower lawsuit against the state’s former prison healthcare provider, according to recently unsealed court filings.

Centurion was paid some $200 million by the state over three years to provide primary healthcare and mental health services to more than 4,000 prisoners in Delaware ending in 2023. At the time, Centurion was a subsidiary of Centene Corp, a Fortune 25 company and the nation’s largest insurer for the country’s Medicaid program.

Both companies are named as defendants and did not reply to multiple requests for comment through their media and investor teams as well as legal counsel over multiple days.

The lawsuit accuses the business of falsifying records, propping up mental health programs they knew were accomplishing nothing, funneling prisoners toward addiction to and covering-up staffing shortages in a way that denied prisoners adequate healthcare.

“It needs to change,” said Christopher Craig, a prisoner at Howard R. Young Correctional Institution who has spent 31 years in Delaware lockup. “It has gotten worse and it needs to be fixed.”

Horror stories told by prisoners, lawsuits filed on their behalf and at least one government report have for years painted correctional healthcare in Delaware as broken and the cause of suffering.

But this lawsuit is unique.

It was filed in 2023 by two former mental healthcare providers employed by Centurion at Sussex Correctional Institution under a special form of litigation designed to incentivize people to point out fraud perpetuated against the government.

Since its filing, the lawsuit has remained hidden from public view under a court-ordered seal while the office of Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings investigated the allegations and eventually decided the state would intervene in the litigation as the defrauded party.

Jennings office declined comment citing the pending litigation. The Delaware Department of Correction, which oversees the delivery of healthcare by private companies, is not named as a defendant and also declined comment.

The state joining the lawsuit represents a remarkable endorsement of the allegations and what prisoners and their families have said for years: the common business model for prison healthcare in Delaware and the United States generally anticipates and prolongs suffering for profitability.

“Centurion’s business model is premised on profit reaped through the denial of basic healthcare and behavioral healthcare required by government contracts,” the lawsuit states.

Centurion enters after scandalous divorce:

State officials hailed Centurion entrance into Delaware’s prisons as a reform as the state divorced its prior, scandal-ridden healthcare provider Connections Community Support Programs Inc.

After years of lawsuits, complaints by prisoners and outside medical providers, Delaware terminated its contract with Connections early. Eventually, the once politically connected non-profit was also sued for defrauding government through drug treatment programs administered outside of Delaware’s prisons. That lawsuit was settled.

At the time, then Department of Correction Commissioner Claire DeMatteis said Centurion would be more professional and better staffed than Connections.

Centurion was selected over other bidders under three-year, extendable contracts that would pay the company $47 million annually to provide basic healthcare services in the prison and $21 million annually to provide mental healthcare as well as drug and alcohol abuse rehab programs.

Centurion operated under the common model for healthcare in American prisons. They bid a certain amount to provide the service; they are paid by taxpayers in monthly instalments and whatever money is left after healthcare is delivered is the company’s profit.

And despite prisoners being financially destitute, Medicaid does not pay for their healthcare unless they are hospitalized for more than 24 hours. Critics say this setup incentivizes shortchanging care, especially expensive specialty care and care that requires an outside doctor.

The company’s basic task is to employ healthcare professionals to provide primary care inside prisons: to make diagnosis and treatment plans, manager prisoners’ medication, provide what care is possible inside the prison and refer people to outside specialists when needed.

The mental health contract is similar and mandated the company administer special programs for substance use disorders which are often linked to a person’s eventual release from prison.

The contract included provisions outlining minimum staffing levels, basic training and qualifications for staff, requirements for the administration of rehabilitation programs that prisoners and provisions for officials to withhold payment if the company didn’t adequately perform these tasks. 

The lawsuit states that these contractual agreements were “lies” by the company.  

“Centurion’s assurances about the treatment and rehabilitation it would provide were false, and it conspired to conceal these shortfalls from the Department of Correction,” the lawsuit states. 

The whistleblowers’ allegations:

Deneen Rayne and Jamie Basara, the two whistleblowers who instigated the lawsuit, both worked for Centurion as substance abuse counselors at Sussex Correctional Institution near Georgetown.

They were part of what was known as the Road to Recovery program, a rehabilitation program that judges order some prisoners to complete during their sentence.

The lawsuit cites their observations to label the program as fraud:

The program was designed to have a minimum staffing of counselors and managers but was never properly staffed, the lawsuit states. Required training wasn’t completed. To create an appearance of compliance, employees would be shifted around when corrections supervisors would visit.

Assessments were completed without meeting with prisoners. Supervisors ordered that one-on-one counseling be skipped in favor of group work to maintain appearances. Some group sessions had no counselor and were led by the participants. 

What was supposed to be regimented counseling work became prisoners completing worksheets on their own. And generally, the lawsuit states that medical records, staffing records, assessment documents, participation records were all fabricated to create a “charade” of compliance. 

Brian Whiteside is a prisoner at Howard R. Young Correctional Center. He has struggled with addiction, overdosed in prison and participated in the Road to Recovery Program. 

“It is not a program,” he said in an interview. “It is a money grab.”

He said the contractor employees did not follow the rules for how the program is supposed to work, mental health counseling that is supposed to come with the medication is sparse and the result is many participants return to prison after or die of an overdose on the outside. 

“It was a joke. There is no accountability. The process doesn’t work,” he said.

The lawsuit also includes Rayne and Basara’s observations about the delivery of general healthcare.

It states sick calls were not attended to in a timely and that they had to pester correctional staff to pressure their higher-ups to attend to ailing prisoners. One prisoner with colon cancer couldn’t get an outside colonoscopy, would regularly soil himself, flies hovered around him and his sick call went unanswered for two weeks, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit tells the story of one prisoner whose cancer caused him to deteriorate, but he could not get proper help until he was hospitalized and believed by the plaintiffs to have died. The lawsuit claims officials let him deteriorate to shift the cost for palliative care onto Medicaid through an extended hospitalization.

“Centurion’s strategy across the state of Delaware was to deny inmates the care they needed in an effort to shift financial responsibility onto Medicaid when inmates became seriously ill and required hospitalization,” the lawsuit states. 

The lawsuit also accuses Centurion of causing addiction by putting prisoners who were not suffering from a substance abuse problem onto addictive drugs designed to treat opioid conditions. It claims a prisoner with a heart condition and another suffering from schizophrenia had their prescribed drugs withheld in favor of opioid abuse medications. 

“Inmates were told repeatedly the drugs they needed were too expensive,” the lawsuit states. 

Big money stakes:

The lawsuit states that Rayne and Basara were both “constructively terminated” in September 2022 after they complained about failures in care. They filed their lawsuit about a year later under what is known as the Delaware False Claims and Reporting Act law.

The law is modeled after a similar federal law that incentivizes whistleblowers to point out individuals or companies that make false claims aimed at defrauding the government. It awards the whistleblowers a percentage of spoils if the lawsuit is successful. In this case, the whistleblowers could receive up to 25 percent of the proceeds.

Litigation under the False Claims Act classifies whistleblowers like Rayne and Basara as “relators” and the state as the plaintiff.

After the lawsuit was filed under seal in September 2023, civil attorneys under Jennings, the state’s top legal officer, began an investigation into the allegations to answer whether the state would join the lawsuit.

Washington D.C.-based attorney Reuben Guttman represents Rayne and Basara and is considered an expert in this type of litigation. He said the government choosing to intervene generally tells the court that the allegations are “material” and “important.”

“You have a lot of private vendors that have come into the (prison) healthcare area and offered the quick fix. Quite frankly, there is no quick fix,” Guttman said. “It is an unfortunate situation, and it is important that the state has stepped in and is taking on these defendants.”

The lawsuit seeks three times what the court may rule as the amount of damages the government sustained because of the fraud as well as the “disgorgement” of all money resulting from the company’s “wrongful conduct.”

State records indicate Centurion was paid $206 million over the course of the contract.

Centene sold off its prison healthcare business in 2023 at what court records indicate was a fire sale price. And there is an ongoing, separate court fight in Delaware’s Chancery Court over who has to pay still-growing costs associated with claims of malpractice and negligent care from when Centene owned the business.

Centene, a publicly traded company, has argued that the terms of the sale means the business’ buyer, a private conglomerate of construction and government contracting businesses owned by a Texas family, should have to pick up the bill.

The Sullivan Brothers Family of Companies accused Centene of obscuring the scale of the negligence claims against the business before the sale and twisting the purchase contract’s language in an unfair attempt to pin costs associated with those long-running medical negligence claims on them.

Why care?

Prisoners are stripped of their freedom for a period of incarceration by a judge, but are not sentenced to medically suffer or potentially die at an earlier age due to neglect. The U.S. Supreme Court has also interpreted amendments to the U.S. Constitution to imbue those imprisoned with a right to basic healthcare and humane conditions. 

And the cost to provide care for people in prison is one of the largest borne by society in today’s carceral system − totaling well more than $50 million a year from state coffers in Delaware.

And while this lawsuit is unique because of the state’s involvement, the allegations are not new for Centurion or Delaware prison healthcare providers before or after.

The allegations follow a similar narrative told by prisoners in interviews with DelawareOnline/The News Journal as well as large-scale litigation against Centurion, VitalCore Health Strategies, the current healthcare provider, and Connections before those two. 

In 2023, the local chapter of the ACLU sued Centurion and VitalCore accusing the contractors of understaffing and delaying basic and outside care and consultation to the point of permanent health consequences. It seeks to represent every prisoner that has been incarcerated while those two have worked for the state.

That lawsuit is ongoing. It comes after a host of other lawsuits and settlements regarding Delaware’s prison healthcare that continue to trickle in against Centurion and providers all the way back to Connections.

In February, the insurer for the now bankrupt Connections settled a prison healthcare lawsuit filed all the way back in 2020 by the family of a 35-year-old man who died of what his lawsuit described as violently obvious opiate withdrawals after a day and a half of being jailed on driving charges.

Whiteside, a prisoner at Howard R. Young, said the system remains disjointed, people don’t receive the care they need and he fears that it is designed to discourage people from seeking care. He said the system leaves people feeling “defeated, deflated and overwhelmed.”

“If you want healthcare you have to fight,” he said. “You have to advocate for yourself. You have to put multiple sick calls in and most people get tired of the process,”

He said people on the outside should care because prisoners are not sentenced to suffer medically and that prison is supposed to include rehabilitation.

“Prison is not supposed to be easy, not supposed to be comfortable,” he said. “But the punishment is being away from our families.” 

Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Delaware prisoners may also contact Xerxes Wilson on the GettingOut app.

Source: https://www.aol.com/articles/state-backed-whistleblower-suit-claims-082033236.html