Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-13-07105/USCOURTS-caDC-13-07105-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Anthony Oliver
Appellant
Philip Morris USA Inc.
Appellee
United States of America

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued May 7, 2014 Decided August 26, 2014 

No. 13-7105 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, EX REL. ANTHONY OLIVER, 

APPELLANT

v. 

PHILIP MORRIS USA INC., A VIRGINIA CORPORATION 

FORMERLY KNOWN AS PHILIP MORRIS, INC., 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:08-cv-00034) 

David S. Golub argued the cause for appellant. With him 

on the briefs were Carl S. Kravitz and Jason M. Knott. 

Elizabeth P. Papez argued the cause for appellee. With 

her on the brief were Eric M. Goldstein, Eric T. Werlinger, 

and Thomas J. Frederick. 

Before: TATEL, GRIFFITH and PILLARD, Circuit Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD. 

 

USCA Case #13-7105 Document #1509263 Filed: 08/26/2014 Page 1 of 15
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PILLARD, Circuit Judge: Anthony Oliver, President and 

CEO of a tobacco company called Medallion Brands 

International Co., brought this qui tam action against Philip 

Morris USA Inc., alleging that Philip Morris violated the 

False Claims Act (“FCA”), 31 U.S.C. §§ 3729-3733 (2006). 

Oliver alleges that Philip Morris was required to provide the 

government with “Most Favored Customer” pricing, but 

failed to do so, instead selling its product for less to affiliates 

operating in the same markets as government purchasers even 

as it fraudulently affirmed to the government that its price was 

the lowest. The district court concluded that it lacked subject 

matter jurisdiction due to the FCA’s “public disclosure bar,” 

because Oliver’s suit was based on transactions that had been 

publicly disclosed. We disagree. Neither the contract term 

obligating Philip Morris to provide the government with Most 

Favored Customer pricing nor Philip Morris’s fraudulent 

certifications that it complied was publicly disclosed. 

Accordingly, we vacate the district court’s decision and 

remand this case for further proceedings. 

I. 

The Navy Exchange Service Command (“NEXCOM”) 

and the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (“AAFES”) 

(collectively, the “Exchanges”) operate facilities that provide 

goods and services to customers in the military community.1

 

The Exchanges enter into contracts with vendors that contain 

Most Favored Customer provisions. Pursuant to those 

government contracts, vendors must certify to the Exchanges 

that the prices, terms, and conditions they offer the Exchanges 

are comparable to or more favorable than the prices the 

 

1

 Because we are reviewing the grant of a motion to dismiss, we 

accept Oliver’s allegations, and draw all reasonable inferences in 

his favor. United States ex rel. Davis v. District of Columbia, 679 

F.3d 832, 834-35 (D.C. Cir. 2012). 

USCA Case #13-7105 Document #1509263 Filed: 08/26/2014 Page 2 of 15
3 

vendors charge their other customers. Defendant Philip 

Morris has, since at least 2002, entered into contracts with and 

sold cigarettes to the Exchanges. Oliver estimates that, in a 

single year, the Exchanges purchased approximately 1.8 

million cartons of Marlboro cigarettes from Philip Morris at 

improperly inflated prices. Philip Morris’s contract obligated 

it to comply with the Most Favored Customer provisions and 

to certify its compliance. 

Oliver filed this qui tam action in 2008, alleging that 

Philip Morris violated the False Claims Act.2

 According to 

the complaint, Philip Morris sold cigarettes to its affiliates at 

lower prices than it charged the Exchanges for identical 

cigarettes, and those affiliates resold the cigarettes at prices 

that undercut the Exchanges’ pricing. Oliver says such sales 

violated the Most Favored Customer provisions even as Philip 

Morris continued to certify that it was providing the 

Exchanges with the best price for its cigarettes, in 

contravention of the FCA. 

The FCA creates civil liability for persons who present 

false and fraudulent claims for payment to the government or 

who use a false statement to get a false or fraudulent claim 

paid by the government. 31 U.S.C. § 3729(a)(1)-(2). The 

FCA authorizes the government to recover a statutory penalty 

for each violation, as well as treble the amount of damages it 

actually sustains. Id. § 3729(a). The FCA also authorizes qui 

 

2

 The False Claims Act was amended on March 23, 2010 by the 

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Pub. L. No. 111-148, 

§ 10104(j)(2), 124 Stat. 119, 901-902 (2010). Those amendments 

do not apply to pending suits filed before their enactment. Graham 

Cnty. Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. 

Wilson, 559 U.S. 280, 283 n.1 (2010). Accordingly, throughout 

this opinion we refer to the version of the FCA that was in effect at 

the time Oliver filed his complaint.

USCA Case #13-7105 Document #1509263 Filed: 08/26/2014 Page 3 of 15
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tam actions, whereby private individuals, called “relators,” 

bring actions in the government’s name; the Act establishes 

incentives for such private suits by allowing successful 

relators to share in the government’s recovery. Id.

§ 3730(b)(1), (d). 

The FCA encourages insiders to expose fraudulent 

conduct, but does not reward relators who seek to profit by 

bringing suits to complain of fraud that has already been 

publicly exposed. See, e.g., Graham Cnty. Soil & Water 

Conservation Dist. v. United States el rel. Wilson, 559 U.S. 

280, 294-95 (2010); United States ex rel. Springfield Terminal 

Ry. Co. v. Quinn, 14 F.3d 645, 649-51 (D.C. Cir. 1994). To 

that end, the FCA contains a public disclosure bar that limits 

the ability of a private party to bring a qui tam suit where the 

fraud is already publicly known. That bar prevents parasitic 

lawsuits brought by opportunistic litigants seeking to 

capitalize on public disclosures. The version of the statutory 

public disclosure bar applicable to this suit divests courts of 

subject matter jurisdiction over an action “based upon the 

public disclosure of allegations or transactions” made in 

specified types of fora, “unless the action is brought by the 

Attorney General or the person bringing the action is an 

original source of the information.” 31 U.S.C. 

§ 3730(e)(4)(A).3

 

 

3

 A person who is an original source of the information may sue as 

a qui tam relator under the FCA even to recover for fraud that has 

been publicly disclosed. An “original source” is someone who “has 

direct and independent knowledge of the information on which the 

allegations are based and has voluntarily provided the information 

to the Government before filing an action.” 31 U.S.C. 

§ 3730(e)(4)(B). The district court concluded that Oliver had failed 

to demonstrate he was an “original source” of the information on 

which his allegations were based. United States ex rel. Oliver v. 

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The district court granted Philip Morris’s motion to 

dismiss Oliver’s claim on the ground that the allegedly 

fraudulent transactions his complaint identifies had already 

been publicly disclosed. United States ex rel. Oliver v. Philip 

Morris USA Inc., 949 F. Supp. 2d 238, 240, 244-49 (D.D.C. 

2013). The court concluded that a Philip Morris 

memorandum, referred to in the litigation as the “Iceland 

Memo,” disclosed Philip Morris’s affiliates’ practice of 

selling cigarettes on the duty-free market at prices lower than 

those it charged the Exchanges, as well as the fact that the 

Exchanges had objected to the pricing differential. Id. at 248. 

The Iceland Memo is a Philip Morris inter-office 

transmittal sheet dated December 28, 1999, relating to a letter 

(not included in the record) that the director of Morale, 

Welfare & Recreation (“MWR”) at a United States naval 

station in Iceland apparently wrote to a duty-free wholesaler 

of Philip Morris cigarettes as part of MWR’s unsuccessful 

efforts to buy cheaper Philip Morris cigarettes from the dutyfree source. J.A. 71. The Memo recounts that a Philip Morris 

sales representative intervened and advised the wholesaler not 

to ship cigarettes to the MWR facility. See id. The Memo 

states, in relevant part: 

P[hilip] M[orris] USA is responsible for U.S. Military 

markets worldwide and is the source for product to 

MWR facilities . . . . P[hilip] M[orris] I[nternational] 

Duty-Free list prices are lower than P[hilip] M[orris] 

 

Philip Morris USA Inc., 949 F. Supp. 2d 238, 249-51 (D.D.C. 

2013). Because we conclude that the information supporting 

Oliver’s claim had not been publicly disclosed, we do not reach the 

question whether Oliver was an “original source.” See Springfield 

Terminal, 14 F.3d at 651; see also United States ex rel. Holmes v. 

Consumer Ins. Grp., 318 F.3d 1199, 1203 (10th Cir. 2003). 

USCA Case #13-7105 Document #1509263 Filed: 08/26/2014 Page 5 of 15
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USA Military tax-free prices and we frequently 

receive inquir[i]es from the Service Headquarters on 

why they can’t purchase tax-free product at these 

lower prices. Our response is that P[hilip] M[orris] 

USA is the U.S. Federal Government’s source of 

product, and we ensure that the product conforms to 

the proper Surgeon General warnings. 

Id. The bottom of the Memo contains a handwritten note 

stating that “this issue was resolved,” but does not specify 

how. Id.

The district court acknowledged that the Iceland Memo 

did not explain that the pricing differential was contrary to the 

Most Favored Customer provisions. Id. at 248-49. 

Nevertheless, that court concluded that those provisions, too, 

were publicly disclosed because they were “legal 

requirements that the [g]overnment is presumed to know.” Id.

at 249 (citing Schindler Elevator Corp. v. United States ex rel. 

Kirk, 131 S. Ct. 1885, 1890 (2011)). The court further 

concluded that Philip Morris’s certification of compliance 

with the Most Favored Customer provisions could be inferred 

from the fact that the Exchanges continued to purchase 

cigarettes from Philip Morris. Id. at 249. Because the FCA 

framed the public disclosure bar as jurisdictional, the 

dismissal was for want of subject matter jurisdiction over 

Oliver’s action. Id. at 240. 

II. 

 Oliver timely appealed, and we have jurisdiction pursuant 

to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo the district court’s 

dismissal for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Fisher-Cal 

Indus., Inc. v. United States, 747 F.3d 899, 902 (D.C. Cir. 

2014). 

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The False Claims Act’s public disclosure bar states that a 

court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over an action “based 

upon the public disclosure of allegations or transactions.” 31 

U.S.C. § 3730(e)(4)(A). As we explained in Springfield 

Terminal, the word “transactions” refers to two or more 

elements that, when considered together, give rise to an 

inference that fraud has taken place. See 14 F.3d at 654. As 

this court elaborated in a much-quoted formulation: 

[I]f X + Y = Z, Z represents the allegation of fraud 

and X and Y represent its essential elements. In order 

to disclose the fraudulent transaction publicly, the 

combination of X and Y must be revealed, from which 

readers or listeners may infer Z, i.e., the conclusion 

that fraud has been committed. The language 

employed in § 3730(e)(4)(A) suggests that Congress 

sought to prohibit qui tam actions only when either the 

allegation of fraud [Z] or the critical elements of the 

fraudulent transaction themselves [X and Y] were in 

the public domain. 

Id. Thus, “where only one element of the fraudulent 

transaction is in the public domain (e.g., X), the qui tam

plaintiff may mount a case by coming forward with either the 

additional elements necessary to state a case of fraud (e.g., Y) 

or allegations of fraud itself (e.g., Z).” Id. at 655. 

III. 

 We begin by restating Oliver’s allegations using the 

Springfield Terminal formulation: the fact that Philip Morris 

was not providing the Exchanges with the best price for 

cigarettes (X) plus the fact that Philip Morris falsely certified 

that it complied with the Most Favored Customer provisions 

(Y) gives rise to the conclusion Philip Morris committed 

fraud (Z). The court lacks jurisdiction over Oliver’s suit only 

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if X and Y, i.e., both the pricing disparities and Philip 

Morris’s false certifications of compliance with the Most 

Favored Customer provisions, were in the public domain.4

 

We need not resolve whether the pricing disparities were 

publicly disclosed in the Iceland Memo, because we conclude 

that the “Y” of Oliver’s suit was not publicly disclosed. 

Philip Morris has made no attempt to show that its allegedly 

false certifications of compliance with the Most Favored 

Customer provisions were in the public domain. Instead, both 

Philip Morris and the district court focused on the public 

disclosure of the Most Favored Customer provisions. See 

Oliver, 949 F. Supp. 2d at 249. The district court concluded 

that if the Most Favored Customer provisions were publicly 

disclosed, Philip Morris’s certifications could be inferred 

from the fact that the Exchanges continued to purchase Philip 

Morris cigarettes. Id. Even assuming arguendo that the 

certifications could be inferred from the disclosure of the 

Most Favored Customer provisions, Oliver’s suit is not barred 

 

4

 The parties do not argue that the Iceland Memo itself contains 

direct “allegations” of fraud (Z). For a disclosure to constitute an 

“allegation” it must contain an explicit assertion that fraud as such 

has taken place. See Springfield Terminal, 14 F.3d at 654. As 

Oliver points out, Philip Morris did not contend below, and the 

district court did not find, “that the Iceland Memo contained a 

conclusory assertion sufficient to constitute an ‘allegation’ under 

the FCA.” Appellant Br. 22. In other words, the Iceland Memo did 

not announce the fraud in the form of Z, as opposed to X + Y. See 

Oliver, 949 F. Supp. 2d at 249 (“[T]he Court finds that Oliver’s 

Complaint describes ‘transactions’ ‘substantially similar to those in 

the public domain’ and therefore is ‘based upon’ the public 

disclosure of those transactions within the meaning of section 

3730(e)(4)(A).” (emphasis added)). Nor does Philip Morris attempt 

to argue on appeal that explicit allegations of fraud as such were 

publicly disclosed. See Oral Arg. Tr. 12:22-14:9, 28:19-29:4; see 

also Appellee Br. 20, 32-33. 

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because the Most Favored Customer provisions were not 

publicly disclosed. 

Philip Morris makes three alternative arguments that the 

Most Favored Customer provisions were publicly disclosed. 

First, Philip Morris encourages us to affirm the district court’s 

conclusion that the Most Favored Customer provisions were 

in the public domain because they were “legal requirements 

that the [g]overnment is presumed to know.” Id. Second, 

according to Philip Morris, the Iceland Memo not only 

publicly disclosed the pricing disparities, but also that the 

government was complaining about those disparities, which 

was adequate to alert government authorities of the likelihood 

of fraud. Finally, after oral argument, Philip Morris urged us 

to rely on new evidence that the Most Favored Customer 

provisions were publicly available. We consider each 

argument in turn.

A. 

 Both the plain language and history of the FCA 

demonstrate, contrary to Philip Morris’s contention, that the 

government’s awareness of the Most Favored Customer 

requirements does not amount to their public disclosure. We 

believe that “a ‘public disclosure’ requires that there be some 

act of disclosure to the public outside of the government. The 

mere fact that the disclosures are contained in government 

files someplace, or even that the government is conducting an 

investigation behind the scenes, does not itself constitute 

public disclosure.” United States ex rel. Rost v. Pfizer, Inc., 

507 F.3d 720, 728 (1st Cir. 2007), overruled on other grounds 

by Allison Engine Co. v. United States ex rel. Sanders, 553 

U.S. 662 (2008). 

The plain text of the public disclosure bar delineates three 

channels through which information can be made public for 

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purposes of invoking the bar. To count as “public,” a 

disclosure must be made either: “[1] in a criminal, civil, or 

administrative hearing, [2] in a congressional, administrative, 

or [General] Accounting Office report, hearing, audit, or 

investigation, or [3] from the news media.” 31 U.S.C. 

§ 3730(e)(4)(A). “[T]he FCA’s public disclosure bar . . . 

deprives courts of jurisdiction over qui tam suits when the 

relevant information has already entered the public domain 

through certain channels.” Graham Cnty., 559 U.S. at 285 

(emphasis added). By its express terms, the public disclosure 

bar only applies when allegations or transactions have been 

made public through one of those channels. See United States 

ex rel. Williams v. NEC Corp., 931 F.2d 1493, 1499 (11th Cir. 

1991). The government’s own, internal awareness of the 

information is not one such channel. See 31 U.S.C. 

§ 3730(e)(4)(A); see also United States ex rel. Meyer v. 

Horizon Health Corp., 565 F.3d 1195, 1200 n.3 (9th Cir. 

2009) (collecting cases holding that disclosure to the 

government, without more, is not a public disclosure for 

purposes of the public disclosure bar). 

 The history of the FCA strongly bolsters this conclusion. 

Congress revised the FCA in 1986 to remove a jurisdictional 

bar that previously applied when the government had 

knowledge of the facts underlying a relator’s suit. Before the 

amendment, the FCA precluded qui tam actions based on 

“evidence or information in the possession of the United 

States . . . at the time such suit was brought.” Schindler 

Elevator Corp. v. United States ex rel. Kirk, 131 S. Ct. 1885, 

1894 (2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). The 1986 

amendment replaced that “government knowledge” bar with 

the version of the public disclosure bar applicable to Oliver’s 

lawsuit. See id. As a result of that change, the inquiry shifted 

from whether the relevant information was known to the 

government to whether that information was publicly 

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disclosed in one of the channels specified by the statute. See 

Graham Cnty., 559 U.S. at 300 (“The statutory touchstone . . . 

is whether the allegations of fraud have been ‘publicly 

disclosed,’ not whether they have landed on the desk of a DOJ 

lawyer.” (citation and internal brackets omitted)). The 

statutory amendment makes clear that the government’s 

knowledge of its own legal requirements is not a public 

disclosure. See, e.g., Rost, 507 F.3d at 729-30. A contrary 

interpretation would essentially reinstate a jurisdictional bar 

Congress expressly eliminated. 

According to Philip Morris, the Supreme Court’s 

decision in Schindler supports its contention that the public 

disclosure bar can be applied when innocuous-seeming facts 

are publicly disclosed and the government has knowledge of a 

non-public federal legal requirement that renders them 

fraudulent. Philip Morris relies on the Court’s statement that 

it concluded that FOIA requests were reports for purposes of 

the public disclosure bar, in part because under a contrary 

interpretation “anyone could identify a few regulatory filing 

and certification requirements, submit FOIA requests until he 

discovers a federal contractor who is out of compliance, and 

potentially reap a windfall in a qui tam action under the 

FCA.” Schindler, 131 S. Ct. at 1894. But Philip Morris’s 

reliance on Schindler is misplaced. In Schindler, the Court 

held that a federal agency’s responses to FOIA requests were 

“reports” for purposes of the public disclosure bar, because an 

agency’s written response together with attached records 

sought in the FOIA request falls within the ordinary 

understanding of the statutory term “administrative . . . 

report.” Id. at 1893. Nothing in Schindler supports Philip 

Morris’s suggestion that suits should be barred any time the 

government is aware of a legal requirement. The 

government’s awareness of the Most Favored Customer 

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provisions at issue in this case does not justify the imposition 

of the public disclosure bar. 

B. 

 We next conclude, contrary to Philip Morris’s 

contentions, that the Iceland Memo did not publicly disclose 

the requirements of the Most Favored Customer provisions. 

The Iceland Memo, standing alone, does not communicate 

that there was anything legally impermissible about the prices 

Philip Morris was charging the Exchanges. See J.A. 71. That 

memo makes no mention of the Most Favored Customer 

clauses, nor does it discuss more generally Philip Morris’s 

obligation to charge the Exchanges its lowest price for 

cigarettes. Id.

Philip Morris contends that the Iceland Memo makes 

clear that the Exchanges were frequently complaining about 

their apparent overpayments, and that those protestations 

support an inference that Philip Morris was fraudulently 

charging the Exchanges higher prices than other customers in 

violation of its contractual undertaking to the contrary. The 

Memo, however, nowhere states that the Exchanges 

complained; rather, it merely reports that Philip Morris 

“frequently receive[d] inquir[i]es” from the Exchanges about 

why they could not purchase cigarettes at the lower prices 

offered by duty-free wholesalers instead of buying them from 

Philip Morris under their contracts. J.A. 71. The mere fact 

that the Exchanges inquired, or even complained, about 

pricing does not amount to public disclosure of facts 

supporting the elements of a claim of fraud. It is reasonable 

for a purchaser to object to buying at a price that is higher 

than the best price not only when the pricing is fraudulent or 

otherwise unlawful, but also when the purchaser simply wants 

to ensure it receives the most competitive deal. Contrary to 

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13 

Philip Morris’s assertions, the Iceland Memo did not publicly 

disclose the allegedly fraudulent aspect of the prices Philip 

Morris charged the Exchanges. 

C. 

Finally, we reject Philip Morris’s belated efforts to 

resurrect arguments it abandoned on appeal. Before the 

district court, Philip Morris argued that the Most Favored 

Customer provisions were available to the broader public and 

thus helped to bring the transaction on which Oliver’s claim is 

based under the public disclosure bar. See Oliver, 949 

F. Supp. 2d at 249 n.8. The district court expressly rejected 

that argument because Philip Morris failed to show the timing 

of the putative internet publication of the Most Favored 

Customer clause that Philip Morris submitted and, in 

particular, that it was publicly available before 2008, when 

Oliver filed his suit. Id. Philip Morris did not follow up by 

seeking to provide to the district court evidence to pin down 

the publication date, nor did it raise on appeal any argument 

based on internet publication of the clause. After oral 

argument, however, Philip Morris submitted to us a letter 

proffering new evidence purporting to show that the Most 

Favored Customer provisions were publicly available on the 

Exchanges’ websites before 2008. 

We typically do not consider new evidence on appeal. 

See, e.g., United States ex rel. Davis v. District of Columbia, 

679 F.3d 832, 837 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 2012); see also Williams v. 

Romarm, SA, --- F.3d ---, No. 13-7022, 2014 WL 2933222, at 

*7 (D.C. Cir. July 1, 2014) (“[T]he 28(j) process should not 

be employed as a second opportunity to brief an issue not 

raised in the initial briefs. The letters are more appropriately 

used to cite new authorities released after briefing is complete 

or after argument but before issuance of the court’s 

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opinion.”). Even though legal arguments going to our subject 

matter jurisdiction are not subject to waiver, we have held that 

we will not consider jurisdictional facts that were not timely 

presented concerning jurisdiction over an FCA claim. See 

United States ex rel. Settlemire v. District of Columbia, 198 

F.3d 913, 920 (D.C. Cir. 1999). We see no reason here to 

depart from our regular practice. Philip Morris has provided 

no explanation for its failure to timely present its new 

evidence to the district court, nor for its delay in providing 

that evidence to us. We are, in any event, in no position to 

assess on appeal its authenticity or its bearing on the issue for 

which it was submitted. As we have explained: 

[A]n appellate court ordinarily has no factfinding 

function. It cannot receive new evidence from the 

parties, determine where the truth actually lies, and 

base its decision on that determination. Factfinding 

and the creation of a record are the functions of the 

district court; therefore, the consideration of newlydiscovered evidence is a matter for the district court. 

The proper procedure for dealing with newly 

discovered evidence is for the party to move for relief 

from the judgment in the district court under rule 

60(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. 

Nat’l Anti-Hunger Coal. v. Exec. Comm. of President’s 

Private Sector Survey on Cost Control, 711 F.2d 1071, 1075 

(D.C. Cir. 1983) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, we 

decline to make an exception here and do not consider Philip 

Morris’s new evidence. 

IV. 

 We decline Philip Morris’s invitation to affirm the 

district court’s decision on the alternative ground that Oliver’s 

complaint fails to state a claim for which relief can be 

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granted. The district court did not evaluate whether Oliver 

had stated a claim; we remand for the district court to 

consider that question in the first instance. See, e.g., 

Singleton v. Wulff, 428 U.S. 106, 120 (1976). 

* * * 

 For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s order 

dismissing the complaint for lack of jurisdiction is vacated 

and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent 

with this opinion. 

So ordered.

 

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