Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto
Encyclopedia
Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, a Washington, D.C.
law firm specializing in employment law, represents whistleblower
s in the United States
. Washingtonian Magazine, in its December 2004 issue, named the firm the top whistleblower within the Beltway. The three partners are brothers Stephen M. Kohn
, Michael D. Kohn
, and David K. Colapinto
. The firm's most famous client was Department of Defense employee Linda Tripp
.
industry whistleblowers, who were retaliated against by their employers for revealing nuclear safety
problems. This led to other areas of whistleblowing litigation, most prominently in the firm's defense of federal employees. KKC defended African American
FBI agents charging racial discrimination within the bureau . The firm also defended Dr. Frederic Whitehurst
, a forensics expert who blew the whistle on the lax standards at the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) Laboratory
and subsequently suffered retaliation by the agency. Involvement in the FBI Lab case involved KKC in the O.J. Simpson murder case, as the forensic standards
used by the prosecutors, and the forensic work itself such as DNA analysis, were called into question by Whitehurst's revelations against the FBI Lab, which had become the national authority in the field of forensics investigations.
regarding her revelations of Monica Lewinsky
's involvement in the sex scandal
that brought about the impeachment
of President Bill Clinton
. The revelations that Lewinsky and Clinton had lied in their legal filings in the sexual harassment
case brought against the sitting president by Paula Jones
, and that Lewinsky had tried to suborn perjury from Tripp, who knew about her affair with Clinton, was one of the main factors influencing the articles of impeachment voted by the House of Representatives
.
Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto handled Tripp's lawsuit against the Justice Department
and the Department of Defense
under the Privacy Act of 1974
. Tripp had sued the government for violating her rights under the Privacy Act alleging that the Clinton Administration leaked confidential details of her employment record to the press. The government eventually settled with Tripp, including agreeing to a one-time payment of more than $595,000, a retroactive promotion, and retroactive pay at the highest salary for 1998, 1999 and 2000. She also received a pension and was cleared to work for the federal government again. Her rights to remain part of a class action lawsuit against the government were also preserved.
provisions of the False Claims Act
. These provisions allow persons and entities with knowledge of fraud committed against the federal government to sue the perpetrator on behalf of the United States, either with the government joining the action or, if the government declines, as a private plaintiff on their own. Qui tam has its roots in the Abraham Lincoln
administration, as Lincoln was concerned with fraud by government contractors during the Civil War.
, in which the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia originally held unconstitutional to the extent the statute purports to tax emotional distress awards unrelated to lost wages. On December 22, 2006, the Court vacated its own judgment in that case.
According to the Web site Tax Analysts, Murphy v. IRS "is not only one of the most significant tax decisions in decades, it is one of the most important constitutional cases in decades as well". The now-voided ruling had shaken up the tax community as it is rare for a federal court to hold that a tax law is unconstitutional. The case was argued for the appellants by Colapinto, who was assisted on the briefs by S. Kohn.
On July 3, 2007, the Court ruled against Ms. Murphy. The court held (1) that the taxpayer's compensation was received on account of a non-physical injury or sickness; (2) that gross income under section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code does include compensatory damages for non-physical injuries, even if the award is not an "accession to wealth," (3) that the income tax imposed on an award for non-physical injuries is an indirect tax, regardless of whether the recovery is restoration of "human capital," and therefore the tax does not violate the constitutional requirement of Article I, section 9, that capitations or other direct taxes must be laid among the states only in proportion to the population; (4) that the income tax imposed on an award for non-physical injuries does not violate the constitutional requirement of Article I, section 8, that all duties, imposts and excises be uniform throughout the United States; (5) that under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the Internal Revenue Service may not be sued in its own name. The Court stated: "[a]lthough the 'Congress cannot make a thing income which is not so in fact,' [ . . . ] it can label a thing income and tax it, so long as it acts within its constitutional authority, which includes not only the Sixteenth Amendment but also Article I, Sections 8 and 9." The court ruled that the personal injury award Ms. Murphy received was "within the reach of the congressional power to tax under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution" -- even if the award was "not income within the meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment". Ms. Murphy's tax refund claim was denied.
An appeal subsequently filed for a rehearing en banc was denied on September 14, 2007. KKC plans to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
of Boston, BSM negotiated a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the attorneys general of several states, agreeing to reimburse state and federal governments a total of $499 million, plus over $16 million in interest.http://www.pacificnewscenter.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=73&twindow=&mad=No&sdetail=13382&wpage=&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1718&hn=pacificnewscenter&he=.com The drug company, which fully cooperated with the government, admitted that it paid illegal remuneration to doctors and health care providers to influence them to purchase BMS' pharmaceuticals and prescribe certain BMS drugs for "off-label" usage. BMS and its Apothecon caused the submission of fraudulent claims against Medicare and Medicaid.
KKC and the other six law firms will share approximately $50 million as their share of the federal government's settlement amount, and an additional share of the state settlement amount, which totals approximately $328 million. The firms also will share in the state settlements.http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ma/Press%20Office%20-%20Press%20Release%20Files/Sept2007/BMS-PR-Final.html
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
law firm specializing in employment law, represents whistleblower
Whistleblower
A whistleblower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities occurring in a government department, a public or private organization, or a company...
s in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. Washingtonian Magazine, in its December 2004 issue, named the firm the top whistleblower within the Beltway. The three partners are brothers Stephen M. Kohn
Stephen M. Kohn
Stephen M. Kohn is an attorney for Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, a Washington, D.C., law firm specializing in employment law. The author of the first legal treatise on whistleblowing, Kohn is recognized as one of the top experts in whistleblower protection law...
, Michael D. Kohn
Michael D. Kohn
Michael D. Kohn, a founding partner of the Washington, D.C. law firm Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, is one of the top litigators specializing in whistleblower protection law. A graduate of Rutgers University , he received his law degree from the Antioch School of Law. After graduating from Antioch, he...
, and David K. Colapinto
David K. Colapinto
David K. Colapinto is an attorney for Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto, a Washington, D.C., USA, law firm specializing in employment law.Colapinto was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on December 4, 1958. He received his J.D. degree from Antioch School of Law after graduating from Boston University with a...
. The firm's most famous client was Department of Defense employee Linda Tripp
Linda Tripp
Linda Rose Tripp was a central figure in the Lewinsky scandal of 1998 and 1999 that led to the impeachment and subsequent acquittal of U.S. President Bill Clinton.-Early life and government employment:...
.
Federal Bureau of Investigation cases
The law firm founded by the Kohn brothers in 1988 first focused on defending nuclear powerNuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
industry whistleblowers, who were retaliated against by their employers for revealing nuclear safety
Nuclear safety
Nuclear safety covers the actions taken to prevent nuclear and radiation accidents or to limit their consequences. This covers nuclear power plants as well as all other nuclear facilities, the transportation of nuclear materials, and the use and storage of nuclear materials for medical, power,...
problems. This led to other areas of whistleblowing litigation, most prominently in the firm's defense of federal employees. KKC defended African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
FBI agents charging racial discrimination within the bureau . The firm also defended Dr. Frederic Whitehurst
Frederic Whitehurst
Frederic Whitehurst was a Supervisory Special Agent in the Federal Bureau of Investigation Laboratory from 1986 to 1998 where he went public as a whistleblower to bring attention to procedural errors and misconduct.-Vietnam:...
, a forensics expert who blew the whistle on the lax standards at the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) Laboratory
Crime Lab
A crime laboratory - often shortened to crime lab - is a scientific laboratory, using primarily forensic science for the purpose of examining evidence from criminal cases.- Lab personnel :A typical crime lab has two sets of personnel:...
and subsequently suffered retaliation by the agency. Involvement in the FBI Lab case involved KKC in the O.J. Simpson murder case, as the forensic standards
Forensics
Forensic science is the application of a broad spectrum of sciences to answer questions of interest to a legal system. This may be in relation to a crime or a civil action...
used by the prosecutors, and the forensic work itself such as DNA analysis, were called into question by Whitehurst's revelations against the FBI Lab, which had become the national authority in the field of forensics investigations.
Linda Tripp Privacy Act case
Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto gained nationwide attention representing whistleblower Linda TrippLinda Tripp
Linda Rose Tripp was a central figure in the Lewinsky scandal of 1998 and 1999 that led to the impeachment and subsequent acquittal of U.S. President Bill Clinton.-Early life and government employment:...
regarding her revelations of Monica Lewinsky
Monica Lewinsky
Monica Samille Lewinsky is an American woman with whom United States President Bill Clinton admitted to having had an "improper relationship" while she worked at the White House in 1995 and 1996...
's involvement in the sex scandal
Sex scandal
A sex scandal is a scandal involving allegations or information about possibly-immoral sexual activities being made public. Sex scandals are often associated with movie stars, politicians, famous athletes or others in the public eye, and become scandals largely because of the prominence of the...
that brought about the impeachment
Impeachment
Impeachment is a formal process in which an official is accused of unlawful activity, the outcome of which, depending on the country, may include the removal of that official from office as well as other punishment....
of President Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton
William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
. The revelations that Lewinsky and Clinton had lied in their legal filings in the sexual harassment
Sexual harassment
Sexual harassment, is intimidation, bullying or coercion of a sexual nature, or the unwelcome or inappropriate promise of rewards in exchange for sexual favors. In some contexts or circumstances, sexual harassment is illegal. It includes a range of behavior from seemingly mild transgressions and...
case brought against the sitting president by Paula Jones
Paula Jones
Paula Corbin Jones is a former Arkansas state employee who sued U.S. President Bill Clinton for sexual harassment. The lawsuit was dismissed before trial on the grounds that Jones failed to demonstrate any damages...
, and that Lewinsky had tried to suborn perjury from Tripp, who knew about her affair with Clinton, was one of the main factors influencing the articles of impeachment voted by the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
.
Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto handled Tripp's lawsuit against the Justice Department
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
and the Department of Defense
United States Department of Defense
The United States Department of Defense is the U.S...
under the Privacy Act of 1974
Privacy Act of 1974
The Privacy Act of 1974, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, Public Law No. 93-579, establishes a Code of Fair Information Practice that governs the collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of personally identifiable information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies...
. Tripp had sued the government for violating her rights under the Privacy Act alleging that the Clinton Administration leaked confidential details of her employment record to the press. The government eventually settled with Tripp, including agreeing to a one-time payment of more than $595,000, a retroactive promotion, and retroactive pay at the highest salary for 1998, 1999 and 2000. She also received a pension and was cleared to work for the federal government again. Her rights to remain part of a class action lawsuit against the government were also preserved.
Qui tam actions
The firm also handles suits filed under the qui tamQui tam
In common law, a writ of qui tam is a writ whereby a private individual who assists a prosecution can receive all or part of any penalty imposed...
provisions of the False Claims Act
False Claims Act
The False Claims Act is an American federal law that imposes liability on persons and companies who defraud governmental programs. The law includes a "qui tam" provision that allows people who are not affiliated with the government to file actions on behalf of the government...
. These provisions allow persons and entities with knowledge of fraud committed against the federal government to sue the perpetrator on behalf of the United States, either with the government joining the action or, if the government declines, as a private plaintiff on their own. Qui tam has its roots in the Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
administration, as Lincoln was concerned with fraud by government contractors during the Civil War.
Murphy tax case
One of the firm's clients was defeated after a preliminary victory in the tax refund case of Murphy v. IRSMurphy v. IRS
Marrita Murphy and Daniel J. Leveille, Appellants v. Internal Revenue Service and United States of America, Appellees , is a controversial tax case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit originally held that the taxation of emotional distress awards by the...
, in which the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia originally held unconstitutional to the extent the statute purports to tax emotional distress awards unrelated to lost wages. On December 22, 2006, the Court vacated its own judgment in that case.
According to the Web site Tax Analysts, Murphy v. IRS "is not only one of the most significant tax decisions in decades, it is one of the most important constitutional cases in decades as well". The now-voided ruling had shaken up the tax community as it is rare for a federal court to hold that a tax law is unconstitutional. The case was argued for the appellants by Colapinto, who was assisted on the briefs by S. Kohn.
On July 3, 2007, the Court ruled against Ms. Murphy. The court held (1) that the taxpayer's compensation was received on account of a non-physical injury or sickness; (2) that gross income under section 61 of the Internal Revenue Code does include compensatory damages for non-physical injuries, even if the award is not an "accession to wealth," (3) that the income tax imposed on an award for non-physical injuries is an indirect tax, regardless of whether the recovery is restoration of "human capital," and therefore the tax does not violate the constitutional requirement of Article I, section 9, that capitations or other direct taxes must be laid among the states only in proportion to the population; (4) that the income tax imposed on an award for non-physical injuries does not violate the constitutional requirement of Article I, section 8, that all duties, imposts and excises be uniform throughout the United States; (5) that under the doctrine of sovereign immunity, the Internal Revenue Service may not be sued in its own name. The Court stated: "[a]lthough the 'Congress cannot make a thing income which is not so in fact,' [ . . . ] it can label a thing income and tax it, so long as it acts within its constitutional authority, which includes not only the Sixteenth Amendment but also Article I, Sections 8 and 9." The court ruled that the personal injury award Ms. Murphy received was "within the reach of the congressional power to tax under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution" -- even if the award was "not income within the meaning of the Sixteenth Amendment". Ms. Murphy's tax refund claim was denied.
An appeal subsequently filed for a rehearing en banc was denied on September 14, 2007. KKC plans to appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
Bristol-Myers-Squibb Qui Tam Case
Kohn Kohn & Colapinto is one of seven law firms that successfully brought qui tam actions against Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMS) and its subsidiary, Apothecon, Inc., for Medicare and Medicaid fraud linked to its drug pricing and marketing practices. According to U.S. Attorney Michael J. SullivanMichael Sullivan (US Attorney)
Michael J. Sullivan is the former United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts. He is also the former Acting Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Prior to his appointment he served six years as the District Attorney for Plymouth County, Massachusetts, as...
of Boston, BSM negotiated a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice and the attorneys general of several states, agreeing to reimburse state and federal governments a total of $499 million, plus over $16 million in interest.http://www.pacificnewscenter.com/default.asp?sourceid=&smenu=73&twindow=&mad=No&sdetail=13382&wpage=&skeyword=&sidate=&ccat=&ccatm=&restate=&restatus=&reoption=&retype=&repmin=&repmax=&rebed=&rebath=&subname=&pform=&sc=1718&hn=pacificnewscenter&he=.com The drug company, which fully cooperated with the government, admitted that it paid illegal remuneration to doctors and health care providers to influence them to purchase BMS' pharmaceuticals and prescribe certain BMS drugs for "off-label" usage. BMS and its Apothecon caused the submission of fraudulent claims against Medicare and Medicaid.
KKC and the other six law firms will share approximately $50 million as their share of the federal government's settlement amount, and an additional share of the state settlement amount, which totals approximately $328 million. The firms also will share in the state settlements.http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/ma/Press%20Office%20-%20Press%20Release%20Files/Sept2007/BMS-PR-Final.html
External links
- Kohn, Kohn & Colapinto website
- Murphy v. IRS The August 2006 Murphy decision (later vacated).