Olshan Secures Final Dismissal of False Claims Act Health Care Fraud Action in California

Olshan successfully secured the dismissal, without leave to amend, of a qui tam action alleging health care fraud under the False Claims Act against client Kaysan Ghasseminejad and his related companies in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. In Lifschutz v. Ghasseminejad et al., Judge Michelle Williams Court on September 14, 2026 granted defendants’ motion to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint and ordered the case closed. The court held that the complaint failed to satisfy the heightened pleading requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b), finding that it alleged a general fraudulent scheme but did not sufficiently connect that scheme to particular false claims submitted by particular defendants. Although the complaint identified patients, hospice entities, enrollment dates and medical conditions, the court found that it did not adequately allege when claims were submitted, what information they contained, what made them false, which government program was billed, or which defendant submitted the claims. The court also rejected the plaintiff’s effort to group the defendants together based on Ghasseminejad’s alleged ownership and control of the hospice companies, emphasizing that such corporate control, standing alone, did not establish fraudulent conduct or show that each defendant submitted false claims. The court further dismissed the plaintiff’s federal False Claims Act conspiracy claim and California False Claims Act claim, which were based on the same alleged conduct. Significantly, the court denied further leave to amend after finding that the plaintiff had filed three complaints and had failed to cure deficiencies previously identified by the court, concluding that further amendment would be futile. Olshan Litigation and White Collar & Government Investigations partner Derrelle Janey and Litigation counsel Katherine Mateo represented the defendants. The decision reinforces the importance of Rule 9(b) as a critical gatekeeping standard in False Claims Act litigation and underscores that allegations of health care fraud must provide specific factual connections between an alleged fraudulent scheme, the particular claims submitted to the government and the defendants alleged to have submitted them. You can read Derrelle’s article “Rule 9(b) as a Gatekeeper for California Health Care Fraud Cases” here and his article “To Survive FCA Actions, Small Cos. Must Take Offensive Steps” here.