Boston Scientific Sanctioned for Withholding Witness Info in Whistleblower Action

MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota federal magistrate judge has imposed discovery sanctions on Boston Scientific Corp. in a qui tam action accusing it of selling defective cardiac defibrillators, ruling that the company improperly failed to provide witness information in its Rule 26 disclosures until the final hours of discovery.

On Feb. 28, Magistrate Judge Tony Leuof the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota directed Boston Scientific to produce documents from the withheld witnesses “in the same manner it produced for the previously-agreed-upon custodians.”

Relator Steven Higgins initiated a qui tam action in 2011 on behalf of the United …