The federal False Claims Act protects former, not just current, employees from retaliation, a divided 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled Wednesday, reviving a retaliation claim by a neurologist who said his former employer "blacklisted" him after he filed a whistleblower lawsuit against it.

The plaintiff, David Felten, had sued his former employer, William Beaumont Hospital, for allegedly paying kickbacks for referrals. Wednesday's ruling creates a split with the 10th Circuit, which has held that the FCA does not protect former employees from retaliation.

Julie Bracker of Bracker & Marcus, a lawyer for Felten, said the ruling was "of critical importance, in that it upholds clear Congressional intent to protect whistleblowers like Dr. Felten, whose career was destroyed because he was brave enough to protest Beaumont's kickback culture."

Michael Turco of Brooks, Wilkins, Sharkey, & Turco, a lawyer for the hospital, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Felten sued the hospital in 2010, and later amended the lawsuit to include a claim that the hospital retaliated against him by maligning him and preventing him from getting another job after he was terminated. The claim involved only the post-termination actions, not the termination itself.

U.S. District Judge Stephen Murphy in Detroit dismissed the retaliation claim, finding that the FCA's anti-retaliation provision did not cover former employees, but allowed Felten to bring an interlocutory appeal.

Circuit Judge John Bush, writing for the majority on Wednesday, said that the term "employee" in the anti-retaliation statute had "no temporal qualifier," making it ambiguous about whether it covered former employees.

In light of that ambiguity, he said, the purpose of the statute compelled the court to conclude that it did cover former employees.

"If employers can simply threaten, harass, and discriminate against employees without repercussion as long as they fire them first, potential whistleblowers could be dissuaded from reporting fraud against the government," he wrote.

Circuit Judge David McKeague joined in the opinion.

Circuit Judge Richard Griffin dissented. He wrote that the meaning of "employee" was not ambiguous and required an existing employment relationship, and that the court "lacks the authority to rewrite that term to define anything broader, narrower, or different than its plain meaning."

The case is United States ex rel. Felten v. William Beaumont Hospital, 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 20-1002.

For Felten: Julie Bracker of Bracker & Marcus

For the hospital: Michael Turco of Brooks, Wilkins, Sharkey, & Turco

(NOTE: The spelling of Felten's name in the second paragraph of this story has been corrected.)