A judge ruled against a former Texas Tech official, Dr. Nicolas Valcik, who filed a whistleblower lawsuit after the university fired him in 2022.
Previous coverage: Texas Tech former data manager sues, saying he was fired in retaliation for discovering mistake; university says firing valid, wants case tossed
The university was already excused as a defendant, but then last week, a judge again ruled against Valcik on the remaining portion of his lawsuit, saying he didn’t prove an important part of his claim.
Valcik claimed his discovery of an embarrassing mistake led to his firing as Tech’s “Managing Director for the Office of Institutional Research.”
He believed staffing reports contained errors needing to be reported to state and federal officials – but were not reported. The errors, according to Valcik’s lawsuit, would cause Tech to get more federal money than it deserved.
Valcik also claimed he deserved protection under the federal False Claims Act. United States District Judge James Wesley Hendrix disagreed.
“Valcik’s sole remaining claim alleges that Texas Tech’s Chief Financial Officer Noel Sloan and Chief Data Officer Brandon Hennington violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by terminating Valcik’s employment in retaliation for his protected whistleblower reports.”
But he failed to prove one very important detail in lawsuit, Hendrix ruled.
“He reported the incorrect data itself, but did not report any concern that the … data was being used to defraud the government,” Hendrix wrote in his ruling.
Valcik claimed fraud in his lawsuit but Hendrix wanted evidence. By Valcik’s own account, he corrected the data, according to the ruling.
“Thus, the court concludes that Valcik’s internal complaints about this false data do not ‘concern false or fraudulent claims for payment submitted to the government,’” the ruling said.
An FCA retaliation claim needed to show:
- Valcik was “engaged in protected activity”
- His bosses knew he was engaged in protected activity and
- He was fired “because of” the protected activity.
Hendrix ruling said Valcik’s allegations were “taken as true” for the purpose of his ruling. But they were not officially found to be true or false.
The court docket as of Tuesday did not show an appeal. The deadline is 30 days (April 16).
