Montana clinic files for bankruptcy following $6 million judgment over false asbestos claims
By MATTHEW BROWN
Associated Press
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — A health clinic in a Montana town plagued by deadly asbestos contamination has filed for bankruptcy after a judge ordered it to pay the government almost $6 million in penalties and damages for submitting hundreds of false asbestos claims. The 337 false claims made patients eligible for Medicare and other benefits they shouldn’t have received. The judgment against the Center for Asbestos Related Disease clinic came in a lawsuit filed by BNSF Railway under the False Claims Act. The federally funded clinic in Libby, Montana, has been at the forefront of the medical response to deadly mining pollution. BNSF shipped material from the mine and is a defendant in hundreds of asbestos-related lawsuits.