On November 19, 2020, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of our client, Marie Cahill, a whistleblower who is pursuing her case of insurance fraud against her former employer, an optometry practice and its corporate parent company. The Illinois Supreme Court upheld a critical anti-fraud law, the Illinois Insurance Claims Fraud Prevention Act, which lets whistleblowers expose and fight fraud on insurance companies.
The Court resoundingly rejected claims that the Illinois statute is unconstitutional or that a whistleblower needs to have been personally harmed by the fraud to bring a claim. Anyone with information of fraud can use the statute and help protect the public from the harm of insurance fraud. Whistleblowers, including Ms. Cahill, can now securely expose and prosecute claims of insurance fraud in Illinois.
Ms. Cahill has exposed a fraud where the defendants falsely certified to an insurance company that it was “fully controlled and majority-owned” by an optometrist to obtain millions of dollars of insurance payments. HSPRD Partner Charlie Wysong represents Ms. Cahill and sued on behalf of the state, contending that the client’s former employer obtained insurance payments through fraud.
The Illinois Supreme Court unanimously agreed with the Illinois Appellate Court that our client did have standing to sue and the case can proceed to litigation. The case now returns to the trial court for proceedings on the merits. Read full opinion here.
You can learn more about HSPRD’s work to represent whistleblowers HERE. .
