What the heck is Qui Tam?
August 20th, 2009. By AbiK
We’ve been posting about whistleblowers and it’s hard to talk about whistleblowing without coming across the phrase “Qui Tam”. Looks like some Latin thing again that legal folks are famously in love with—and, alas, it is! But beyond the Latin, why does it always seem to show up with whistleblowing cases? Pleading Ignorance takes a look at…
What the heck is Qui Tam?
First off, let’s be clear. Qui tam itself is not the full Latin phrase that the phrase initially comes from (got that?). Qui tam comes from this:
“qui tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso in hoc parte sequitur”
which, if we grab our handy dandy Cassell’s Latin dictionary, we’ll find means this:
“he who sues for the king as well as for himself”
Now, I don’t know. Maybe someone figured out at some point that we no longer have kings here on American soil. Who knows? But at some point, we got tired of tiring to remember the full Latin phrase, and gave it a nickname: Qui tam. Period.
Great. So what does it mean in regard to a whistleblower? Basically, instead of “king”, insert the words “US government” and you’ll begin to get the picture. Qui tam means that the person who brings a claim against another person who has knowingly committed a false or fraudulent claim against the United States, will not only file the claim on behalf of the US government, but will also share in a portion of the penalties or fines collected.
In other words, expose someone who’s committing fraud against the government (i.e., be a whistleblower!) and you’ll be suing that person on behalf of the government and be able to share in whatever award there might be for the plaintiffs (you, and the US government).
