A qui tam case that was recently dismissed on summary judgment may signal the next front in the legal enforcement war arising from off-label use of prescription medications.

In United States ex rel. Watson v. King-Vassel et al., filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, the complaint alleged that defendant Dr. Jennifer King-Vassel violated the Federal False Claims Act and Wisconsin False Claims Law by prescribing medications to a minor patient receiving Medicaid assistance for off-label purposes – that is, for purposes other than the specific ones for which the Food and Drug Administration has authorized use. The complaint also alleged that the company that employed Dr. King-Vassel was liable under a theory of respondeat superior.

On October 23, 2012, the court granted summary judgment to the defendants on the ground that there was no specific allegation that Dr. King-Vassel had submitted a Medicaid claim (or made any other false claim) specifically arising from the prescription of the medication in question, and on the ground that Dr. King-Vassel was actually an independent contractor, and not an employee, of the corporate defendant.

The Watson case was clearly resolved in the way it was because of specific deficiencies in the pleadings and proof in that case, and the court’s order dismissing the case was also highly critical of ethically questionable behavior committed by the relator as a means of creating and supporting the qui tam case. Nevertheless, the case raises the specter of a whole new series of legal actions that appear likely to arise from off-label use of FDA-approved medications.

We have written before about the massive fines paid by pharmaceutical companies for promotion of off-label use of medications. The Watson case focuses on a whole other universe of potential deep-pocket defendants: medical professionals and institutions involved in the prescription of the medications in question. Notwithstanding the dismissal of the Watson case, its operative theory – that a Medicaid claim relating to off-label use of a medication may constitute a false claim – may still be viable, though it is largely untested. Going forward, in any case in which a medical professional or institution faces civil or criminal legal action based on such a theory, counsel will have to scrutinize carefully whether the claims on which liability purports to be based truly fall within the scope of the false claims statute.