Nathan Adams IV is a Partner in the
Tallahassee office.
Timely Topics
Religious institutions commonly make payments to or receive
payments directly or indirectly from governmental agencies for
services rendered; e.g., day cares that benefit from public
scholarships, hospitals that participate in Medicare or Medicaid,
or soup kitchens that receive grants. Institutions that do business
with government should be familiar with the federal and state False
Claims Act. The quintessential false claim involves knowingly
presenting or causing to be presented to a state officer or
contractor a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval.
Another type is knowingly making, using, or causing to be made or
used a false statement to decrease an obligation to pay money to
the state. As a recent example, churches in Hawaii reportedly
settled a False Claims Act lawsuit arguing that they
misled public schools through the use of insincere documents to
convince the schools to
