Hannah F. Preston

Hannah F. Preston concentrates on defending clients facing qui tam actions, class action lawsuits, commercial disputes and appellate litigation. She represents clients primarily in federal courts throughout the United States.

Often defending manufacturers of consumer products and healthcare clients, Hannah’s work includes handling critical motions and appellate briefs, as well as managing discovery in complex litigation and responses to government subpoenas. She has formulated winning arguments for dispositive motions, successfully advocated for clients on appeal, and served on a trial team that obtained a total defense verdict in multi-district litigation.

Corporate clients seek Hannah’s legal advice on a range of substantive matters involving the False Claims Act, the Anti-Kickback Statute, regulatory compliance, state consumer protection laws, common law claims and discovery issues.

Prior to joining Dowd Bennett, Hannah was an associate at Dentons US LLP in the litigation group, where she was part of a national class action defense team. She served as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable John R. Gibson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit before entering private practice.

Representative Matters

• Hannah is part of a Dowd Bennett team defending claims on which the government intervened in False Claims Act litigation in the Eastern District of New York challenging the reasonableness and medical necessity of a client’s healthcare services. Hannah successfully moved to dismiss the qui tam relators’ non-intervened claims in the litigation based on failure to plead them with particularity under Rule 9(b).
• Hannah defends a healthcare client in FCA litigation involving Medicare billing and Anti-Kickback Statute issues related to joint ventures and contracts with physicians in multiple federal courts, including an action that the Eastern District of New York dismissed at the pleadings stage under the FCA public disclosure bar, with the Second Circuit affirming on appeal.
• Hannah has defended class action litigation involving beer labeling, ingredients, and marketing in several federal courts, including obtaining dismissal of statutory claims under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and the federal Magnuson-Moss Warranty Act, as well as a variety of common law claims, in a case involving a craft beer brand in the Southern District of Florida. Upon dismissing the plaintiffs’ claims, the court denied their motion for class certification as moot.
• Hannah has handled briefing on venue, merits, and discovery issues, prepared bellwether cases for trial and managed complex discovery in mass tort actions pending in multiple jurisdictions including a federal MDL. Hannah was part of the Dowd Bennett team that achieved a total defense verdict in the bellwether case that proceeded to jury trial in the District of Massachusetts.
• Hannah was part of a team that obtained reversal of class certification, exclusion of plaintiffs’ experts, and summary judgment in a multi-state class action involving marketing related to tool power ratings in the Eastern District of Missouri.
• Prior to joining Dowd Bennett, Hannah prepared successful oppositions to class certification and motions for decertification in several consumer class actions for an insurance client.