With a few additional paragraphs, a reissued Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals opinion said a Florida businessman accused of looting hundreds of millions of dollars from his now-defunct loan company may be included in a False Claims Act lawsuit claiming the defendants tacked illegal fees onto Veterans Administration-backed loans over a period of years. 

The appeals court last month revived the case against Mortgage Investors Corp. after a trial judge dismissed it, but its January ruling agreed with a trial judge that MIC's former president and majority shareholder Bill Edwards, a St. Petersburg, Florida-based entrepreneur and philanthropist, could not be sued for claims in Georgia.