A Tennessee federal judge has taken the highly unusual step of denying the government’s request to intervene in a qui tam suit in which it had previously declined intervention. In a complaint filed in April 2017, the relators in United States ex rel. Odom v. SouthEast Eye Specialists, PLLC, alleged that the defendants violated the False Claims Act by paying kickbacks to induce optometrists to refer their patients for surgery. After receiving six extensions that dragged out the seal period for over two years, the government (DOJ and the State of Tennessee) declined intervention in August 2019.
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