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What’s in a claim? A lot if you’re in the Third Circuit, where a recent decision retroactively applied the FCA to a union’s lawsuit alleging a construction company tried to skirt the “prevailing wage” provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act. Under the Davis-Bacon Act, contractors performing federally funded construction contracts must certify their compliance to the US Department of Labor as a precondition for payment. According to the labor union that served as relator in this case, Farfield construction company falsely certified its compliance with Davis-Bacon despite misclassifying workers; the union claimed the company classified workers as “less skilled” though they performed tasks ordinarily performed by “higher-skilled (and higher-paid) workers.”

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