Traci L. Buschner is a founding member of Guttman, Buschner & Brooks PLLC. A former state prosecutor, Ms. Buschner has spent over 15 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. In the following, Ms. Buschner represented:
- The lead whistleblower, Meredith McCoyd, in a False Claims Act case against Abbott Laboratories, resulting in a settlement of over $1.5 billion in 2012. The case involved Abbott’s illegal efforts to promote an anti-seizure medication, Depakote, through off-label marketing, misbranding and paying physicians to write prescriptions. The settlement was one of the largest recoveries by the United States Government under the False Claims Act against a pharmaceutical company.
- The lead whistleblowers in a False Claims Act case against Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Pfizer, resulting in a $257.4 million settlement in 2013. The settlement agreement outlined the company’s efforts – for over a decade – to unlawfully market a powerful immunosuppressant drug Rapamune, used to treat patients who have undergone kidney transplants.
- A former sales manager in a False Claims Act case against Amgen, Inc., culminating in a settlement of $24.9 million in 2013. The settlement agreement charged that Amgen paid kickbacks, in the guise of rebates, to long-term care pharmacies in exchange for switching nursing home patients from a competitor drug to Aranesp and encouraged pharmacists to recommend the drug for uses outside the drug’s FDA label.
- A nursing professional and former Sales Manager in a False Claims Act case resulting in a $1.04 billion settlement against GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in 2012. Ms. Graydon was one of the relators who alleged that GSK made false and misleading statements about Advair’s safety and efficacy, thus enabling false or fraudulent claims to Medicare, Medicaid, and other reimbursement programs.
- One of the six main whistleblowers in a False Claims Act case against Pfizer, Inc., which in 2009 resulted in the government’s recovery of $2.3 billion.
- A physician and two nurses in a False Claims Act case against Community Health Systems, Inc. (CHS), which resulted in the Government’s recovery in 2014 of over $98 million related, in part, to unnecessary emergency room admissions at over 100 separate hospitals across the country.
- A certified professional coder in a False Claims Act case against a suburban New York oncology group, resulting in a $5.5 million dollar recovery in 2016 based upon admissions of co-pay waiver and up-coding.
Prior to joining GBB, she was an attorney with the Washington, D.C. office of one of the nation’s largest personal injury and labor firms and also practiced with an Austin, Texas firm where she represented victims of asbestos exposure.
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, Ms. Buschner was actively involved in environmental litigation which led to Secretary of Energy, William Richardson, canceling a project to recycle radioactive nickel at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee K-25 Nuclear Weapons Complex. The documentation of her efforts to expose faulty government contracting at Department of Energy Nuclear weapons sites was published in The Environmental Forum, Volume 17, No. 6, November/December 2000.
Ms. Buschner has co-authored two articles with colleague Reuben A. Guttman: “Patients Suffer from Drug Industry’s Chronic Greed,” Wall Street Journal MarketWatch (August 7, 2013) and “Taking the Next Step in Pharma Fraud,” American Constitution Society Blog (May 8, 2012).
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).
Ms. Buschner currently serves on the Board of Governors of the Trial Lawyers Association of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. (TLA-DC). She is also a member of the American Association for Justice’s (AAJ) Qui Tam Litigation Section and the American Constitution Society. She has also served as a faculty member (2011, 2012,2014 and 2016) for Emory University Law School’s Trial Techniques Program.
Ms. Buschner graduated from Miami University in 1990, and received her J.D. from the University of Louisville in 1995. She is admitted to practice the District of Columbia; the Commonwealth of Kentucky; the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia; the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky; the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
