Law360, New York ( September 22, 2016, 1:07 PM EDT) -- Health care providers and government contractors are keenly aware that the False Claims Act is the government's primary civil enforcement tool used to redress instances where the government is billed improperly for goods or services. As a fraud statute, the FCA is intended to combat instances of intentional wrongdoing against the government but does not reach acts of simple negligence. To establish FCA liability, the government or a qui tam relator must show that a defendant acted with the requisite level of knowledge. Such knowledge can be actual or constructive, meaning that the defendant acted either in deliberate ignorance or in reckless disregard of the truth. Courts attempting to delineate the "reckless disregard" standard have characterized it as "an extreme version of ordinary negligence,"[1] "an aggravated form of gross negligence,"[2] and lying "on a continuum between gross negligence and intentional harm."[3]...