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VERMONT AGENCY OF NATURAL RESOURCES v.
UNITED STATES ex rel. STEVENS
Opinion of the Court

liability provision—the precursor to today’s § 3729(a)—bore
In-
no indication that States were subject to its penalties.
deed, far from indicating that States were covered, it did
not even make clear that private corporations were, since
it applied only to “any person not in the military or naval
forces of the United States, nor in the militia called into
or actually employed in the service of the United States,”
and imposed criminal penalties that included imprisonment.11
Act of Mar. 2, 1863, ch. 67, § 3, 12 Stat. 698. We do not
suggest that these features directed only at natural persons
cast doubt upon the courts’ assumption that § 3729(a) extends
to corporations, see, e. g., United States ex rel. Woodard v.
Country View Care Center, Inc., 797 F. 2d 888, 890 (CA10
1986)—but that is because the presumption with regard to
corporations is just the opposite of the one governing here:
they are presumptively covered by the term “person,” see
1 U. S. C. § 1. But the text of the original statute does less
than nothing to overcome the presumption that States are
not covered.

Although the liability provision of the original FCA has
undergone various changes, none of them suggests a broad-
ening of the term “person” to include States.
In 1982, Con-
gress made a housekeeping change, replacing the phrase
“any person not in the military or naval forces of the United
States, nor in the militia called into or actually employed
in the service of the United States” with the phrase “[a] per-
son not a member of an armed force of the United States,”
thereby incorporating the term of art “member of an armed
force” used throughout Title 10 of the United States Code.
31 U. S. C. § 3729 (1982 ed.). And in 1986, Congress elimi-
nated the blanket exemption for members of the Armed
Forces, replacing the phrase “[a] person not a member of an

11 The criminal provision remains on the books and is currently codiﬁed

separately, as amended, at 18 U. S. C. § 287.