United States ex rel. Jahr, et al., v. Tetra Tech EC, Inc.

San Francisco, Californian qui tam lawyers represented the United States in a False Claims Action.

Reported by Kent Morlan

Arthur R. Jahr III, Elbert G. Bowers, Susan V. Andrews, Archie R. Jackson, Anthony Smith, Donald K. Wadsworth, and Robert McLean, former employees and contractors of Tetra Tech. alleged that, pursuant to contracts issued by the Navy between 2003 and 2014, Tetra Tech EC, Inc. was required to investigate the soil and buildings at HPNS and to remediate any areas where radiation was excessive so that the property could be transferred to the City of San Francisco for redevelopment. The government alleged that Tetra Tech instructed field technicians to discard soil samples collected from potentially contaminated locations, replace the discarded samples with “clean” soil known to satisfy the release criteria, and to submit the replaced samples for laboratory analysis. The complaint further alleged that Tetra Tech intentionally manipulated scan results in its database that falsely represented that scans taken at different locations were conducted by the same technician at the same time. The government alleged that Tetra Tech benefited from this misconduct by receiving unearned contract award fees and avoiding obligations to perform additional remediation work, thereby decreasing its costs and increasing its profits.

Settled for $57 million.

The relators’ share of the settlement is approximately $11,970,000.

The claims resolved by the settlement are allegations only and there has been no determination of liability.