Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1326_6jfl.pdf
Page Number: 10

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

7 

Opinion of the Court 

cuit took Safeco to ask whether a defendant’s acts were con-
sistent with any objectively reasonable interpretation of the
relevant law that had not been ruled out by definitive legal
authority or guidance.  This step, the Seventh Circuit held,
applied  regardless  of  whether  the  defendant  actually  be-
lieved such an interpretation at the time of its claims.  Only
if the defendant’s acts were not consistent with any objec-
tively reasonable interpretation would the court proceed, at 
step  two,  to  consider  the  defendant’s  actual  subjective 
thoughts.  Thus,  under  the  Seventh  Circuit’s  approach,  a 
claim would have to be objectively unreasonable, as a legal 
matter, before a defendant could be held liable for “know-
ingly” submitting a false claim, no matter what the defend-
ant thought.

Turning to the facts here, the Seventh Circuit held that
respondents  were  entitled  to  summary  judgment  because 
their actions were consistent with an objectively reasonable
interpretation of the phrase “usual and customary.”  Specif-
ically, the court reasoned that the phrase could have been 
understood  as  referring  to  respondents’  retail  prices,  not
their  discounted  prices—even  if  the  phrase,  correctly  un-
derstood, referred to their discounted prices.  It thus did not 
matter whether respondents thought that their discounted
prices  were  actually  their  “usual  and  customary”  prices. 
What  mattered,  instead,  was  that  someone  else,  standing 
in  respondents’  shoes,  may  have  reasonably  thought  that
the retail prices were what counted. 

We granted certiorari, see 598 U. S. ___ (2023), to resolve
that  legal  question:  If  respondents’  claims  were  false  and
they actually thought that their claims were false—because
they  believed  that  their  reported  prices  were  not  actually
their “usual and customary” prices—then would they have
“knowingly”  submitted  a  false  claim  within  the  FCA’s
meaning?  Or is the Seventh Circuit correct—that respond-
ents could not have “knowingly” submitted a false claim un-
less no hypothetical, reasonable person could have thought