UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT _______________

No. 21-1641 _______________

ALASTAIR CROSBIE, Appellant

v. HIGHMARK INC.; HIGHMARK HEALTH OPTIONS; GATEWAY HEALTH PLAN _______________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 2-19-cv-01235) District Judge: Honorable Michael M. Baylson _______________

Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) on March 21, 2022 Before: BIBAS, MATEY, and PHIPPS, Circuit Judges

(Filed: August 26, 2022) _______________ Bryan R. Lentz Kiersty DeGroote BOCHETTO & LENTZ, P.C. 1524 Locust Street Philadelphia, PA 19102 Peter R. Bryant DILWORTH PAXON 457 Haddonfield Road, Suite 700 Cherry Hill, NJ 08002 Counsel for Appellant Kim M. Watterson Nicole J. Aiken-Shaban REED SMITH LLP 225 Fifth Avenue, Suite 1200 Pittsburgh, PA 15222 Counsel for Appellees Highmark Inc. and Highmark Health Options Nina K. Markey Alexa J. Laborda Nelson LITTLER MENDELSON, P.C. 1601 Cherry Street, Suite 1400 Philadelphia, PA 19102 Counsel for Appellee Gateway Health Plan

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OPINION OF THE COURT _______________ BIBAS, Circuit Judge. Whistleblowing does not insulate an employee from being fired for misconduct. Alastair Crosbie reported signs of possi- ble fraud. More than a year later, his coworker accused him of harassment. His employer investigated the accusation and fired him within two days. Crosbie says flaws in the investigation show that it must have been a sham. He insists that the real reason he was fired was his whistleblowing, not his coworker’s complaint. Because he has not debunked his employer’s expla- nation, we will affirm. I. BACKGROUND Crosbie was hired by Gateway to help Highmark, a health- insurance company, investigate fraud. (Because Gateway wrote his paychecks but a Highmark employee decided to fire him, we call them both his employers.) While auditing High- mark’s network of doctors, Crosbie found some troubling facts. For instance, he says he discovered that some doctors had prior convictions for selling opioid prescriptions. Others, he maintains, lacked required Medicaid licenses. In mid-2017, he reported his concerns to his managers at Gateway. They inves- tigated but decided not to take any action. Yet Crosbie kept pressing the issue. Eventually, his managers told him to drop it. Fast-forward to October 1, 2018, more than a year after his first report. Crosbie’s coworker lodged a complaint against

3 him. She said that Crosbie had called her “Miss Piggy” and “oinked” at her. App. 455–56. Gateway’s human-resources team (HR) investigated. Their investigator interviewed Crosbie, the complainant, and an eyewitness who corroborated the complainant’s story. She also interviewed other people who knew of past issues between Crosbie and the complainant. And she spoke to Jim Burgess, one of the managers who had told Crosbie to drop the fraud issue. Burgess told the investigator that he would have questioned the allegations. But earlier that day, Crosbie had called him and made “coughing” and “snort- ing” noises, which made him think that Crosbie “did it.” App. 1076, 1313. On October 3, HR fired Crosbie. Crosbie shot back, suing Gateway and Highmark under the False Claims Act for retaliation. Crosbie claimed that they had fired him because of his fraud reports. The employers replied that the people who had decided to fire Crosbie knew nothing about his reports and that they had good reason to fire him. Agreeing, the District Court granted summary judgment. Crosbie, it concluded, had not shown that the employers’ rea- son was a mere