1 (Slip Opinion) OCTOBER TERM, 2009
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be relead, as is
being done in connection with this ca, at the time the opinion is issued.
The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been
prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.
See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVA- TION DISTRICT ET AL. v. UNITED STATES EX REL.
WILSON
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR
鱿鱼的家常做法
THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
白马盟No. 08–304. Argued November 30, 2009—Decided March 30, 2010 The Fal Claims Act (FCA) authorizes both the Attorney General and private qui tam relators to recover from persons who make fal or fraudulent payment claims to the United States, but it bars qui tam actions bad upon the public disclosure of allegations or transactions in, inter alia, “a congressional, administrative, or Government Ac-counting Office [(GAO)] report, hearing, audit, or investigation.” 31 U. S. C. §3730(e)(4)(A). Here, federal contracts provided that two North Carolina counties would remediate areas damaged by flooding and that the Federal Government would shoulder most of the costs. Respondent Wilson, then an employee of a local government body in-volved in this effort, alerted local and federal officials about possible fraud. Both the county and the State issued reports identifying po-tential irregularities in the contracts’ administration. Subquently, Wilson filed a qui tam action, alleging, as relevant here, that peti-tioners, county conrvation districts and local and federal officials, knowingly submitted fal payment claims in violation of the FCA. The District Court ultimately dismisd for lack of jurisdiction be-cau Wilson had not refuted that her action was bad upon allega-tions publicly disclod in the county and state reports, which it held were “admini
strative” reports under the FCA’s public disclosure bar. In reversing, the Fourth Circuit concluded that only federal adminis-trative reports may trigger the public disclosure bar.
Held: The reference to “administrative” reports, audits, and investiga-tions in §3730(e)(4)(A) encompass disclosures made in state and lo-cal sources as well as federal sources. Pp. 4–21.
2 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION
v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON
DIST.
Syllabus
(a) Section 3730(e)(4)(A) specifies three categories of disclosures that can deprive federal courts of jurisdiction over qui tam suits. The language at issue is contained in the cond category (Category 2). Pp. 4–5.
(b) The FCA’s plain text does not limit “administrative” to federal sources. Becau that term modifies “report, hearing, audit, or inves-tigation” in a provision about “the public disclosure” of fraud
on the United States, it is most naturally read to describe government agency activities. But since “administrative” is not itlf modified by “federal,” there is no immediately apparent basis for excluding state and local agency activities from its ambit. The interpretive maxim noscitur a sociis—“a word may be known by the company it keeps,” Rusll Motor Car Co. v. United States, 261 U. S. 514, 519—does not support the Fourth Circuit’s more limited view. In Category 2, “ad-ministrative” is sandwiched between the federal terms “congres-sional” and “[GAO],” but the items are too few and too disparate to qualify as “a string of statutory terms,” S. D. Warren Co. v. Maine Bd. of Environmental Protection, 547 U. S. 370, 378, or “items in a list,” Beecham v. United States, 511 U. S. 368, 371, for noscitur a so-ciis purpos. Furthermore, evaluating “administrative” within the public disclosure bar’s larger scheme, the Court obrves that Cate-gory 2’s terms are themlves sandwiched between phras in Cate-gory 1 (“criminal, civil, or administrative hearing”) and Category 3 (“news media”) that are generally understood to include nonfederal sources; and Category 1 contains the same term (“administrative”) that is at issue. Even if Category 1 were best understood to refer to adjudicative proceedings and Category 2 to legislative or quasi-legislative activities, state and local administrative sources of a legis-lative-type character are presumably just as public, and just as likely to put the Federal Government on notice of a potential fraud, as state and local administrative hearings of an adjudicatory character. The FCA’s overall federal focus shine
s no light on the specific question whether the public disclosure bar extends to nonfederal contexts. And the fact that state legislative sources are not included in §3730(e)(4)(A) carries no clear implications for the status of state administrative sources. Pp. 5–12.
(c) The legislative record does not support an exclusively federal in-terpretation of “administrative.” The current §3730(e)(4)(A) was en-acted to strike a balance between encouraging private persons to root out fraud and stifling parasitic lawsuits. How exactly the statute came to strike this balance as it did is uncertain, as significant sub-stantive changes—including the introduction of “administrative” in Category 2—were inrted without floor debate or other discussion, as “technical” amendments. Though Congress wanted “to strengthen
3
Cite as: 559 U. S. ____ (2010)
Syllabus
the Government’s hand in fighting fal claims,” Cook County v. United States ex rel. Chandler, 538 U. S. 119, 133–134, and encour-age more qui tam suits, it also determined to bar a subt of tho s
uits that it deemed unmeritorious or downright harmful. The ques-tion here concerns that subt’s preci scope; and on that matter, the record is all but opaque, leaving no “evident legislative purpo” to guide resolution of this discrete issue, United States v. Bornstein, 423 U. S. 303, 310. Pp. 12–18.
寒包火>汉武大帝观后感(d) Respondent’s additional arguments in favor of limiting “admin-istrative” to federal sources are unpersuasive. Pp. 18–20.
528 F. 3d 292, reverd and remanded.
S TEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which R OBERTS, C. J., and K ENNEDY, T HOMAS, G INSBURG, and A LITO, JJ., joined, and in which S CALIA, J., joined except as to Part IV. S CALIA, J., filed an opin-ion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. S OTOMAYOR, J., filed a disnting opinion, in which B REYER, J., joined.
_________________ _________________ 1
Cite as: 559 U. S. ____ (2010)
Opinion of the Court
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the
preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to
notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash-
ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order协的组词
亚马孙热带雨林that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
No. 08–304
GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVA- TION DISTRICT, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. UNITED STATES EX REL. KAREN T. WILSON
ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
[March 30, 2010]
J USTICE S TEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court. Since its enactment during the Civil War, the Fal Claims Act, 31 U. S. C. §§3729–3733, has authorized both the Attorney General and private qui tam relators to recover from persons who make fal or fraudulent claims for payment to the United States. The Act now contains a provision barring qui tam actions bad upon the public disclosure of allegations or transactions in certain speci-fied sources. §3730(e)(4)(A). The question before us is whether the reference to “administrative” reports, audits, and investigations in that provision encompass disclo-sures made in state and local sources as well as federal sources. We hold that it does.1
——————
1On March 23, 2010, the President signed into law the Patient Pro-tection and Affordable Care Act, Pub. L. 111–148, 124 Stat. 119. Section 10104(j)(2) of this legislation replaces the prior version of 31 U. S. C. §3730(e)(4) with new language. The legislation makes no mention of retroactivity, which would be necessary for its application to pending cas given that it eliminates petitioners’ claimed defen to a qui tam suit. See Hughes Aircraft Co. v. United States ex rel. Schumer, 520 U. S. 939, 948 (1997). Throughout this opinion, we u the prent
2 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION
卜算子咏梅朗诵v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON
DIST.
Opinion of the Court
I
In 1995 the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) entered into contracts with two counties in North Carolina authorizing them to perform, or to hire others to perform, cleanup and repair work in areas that had suf-fered extensive flooding. The Federal Government agreed to shoulder 75 percent of the contract costs. Respondent Karen T. Wilson was at that time an employee of the Graham County Soil and Conrvation District, a special-purpo government body that had been delegated partial responsibility for coordinating and performing the reme-diation effort. Suspecting possible fraud in connection with this effort, Wilson voiced her concerns to local offi-cials in the summer of 1995. She also nt a letter to, and had a meeting with, agents of the USDA.
Graham County officials began an investigation. An accounting firm hired by the county performed an audit and, in 1996, issued a report (Audit Report) that identified veral potential irregularities in t
he county’s administra-tion of the contracts. Shortly thereafter, the North Caro-lina Department of Environment, Health, and Natural Resources issued a report (DEHNR Report) identifying similar problems. The USDA’s Office of Inspector General eventually issued a third report that contained additional findings.油皮怎么做好吃
In 2001 Wilson filed this action, alleging that petition-ers, the Graham County and Cherokee County Soil and Water Conrvation Districts and a number of local and federal officials, violated the Fal Claims Act (FCA) by knowingly submitting fal claims for payment pursuant to the 1995 contracts. She further alleged that petitioners retaliated against her for aiding the federal investigation of tho fal claims. Following this Court’s review of the ——————
ten in discussing the statute as it existed at the time this ca was argued.
