Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 864.0

529US3

Unit: $U59

[09-26-01 12:32:42] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 529 U. S. 765 (2000)

789

Stevens, J., dissenting

parties, and therefore concur in the Court’s resolution of the
I note, however,
statutory question. See ante, at 787–788.
that the clear statement rule applied to private suits against
a State has not been applied when the United States is the
plaintiff. See, e. g., Sims v. United States, 359 U. S. 108, 112
(1959) (state agency ranks as a “person” subject to suit by
the United States under federal tax levy provision); United
States v. California, 297 U. S. 175, 186–187 (1936) (state-
owned railway ranks as a “common carrier” under Federal
Safety Appliance Act subject suit for penalties by the United
States).
I read the Court’s decision to leave open the ques-
tion whether the word “person” encompasses States when
the United States itself sues under the False Claims Act.

Justice Stevens, with whom Justice Souter joins,

dissenting.

In 1986, Congress amended the False Claims Act (FCA
or Act) to create a new procedure known as a “civil investi-
gative demand,” which allows the Attorney General to ob-
tain documentary evidence “for the purpose of ascertaining
whether any person is or has been engaged in” a viola-
tion of the Act—including a violation of 31 U. S. C. § 3729.
The 1986 amendments also declare that a “person” who
could engage in a violation of § 3729—thereby triggering the
civil investigative demand provision—includes “any State or
political subdivision of a State.” See § 6(a), 100 Stat. 3168
(codiﬁed at 31 U. S. C. §§ 3733(l)(1)(A), (2), (4)).
In my view,
this statutory text makes it perfectly clear that Congress
intended the term “person” in § 3729 to include States. This
understanding is supported by the legislative history of the
1986 amendments, and is fully consistent with this Court’s
construction of federal statutes in cases decided before those
amendments were enacted.

Since the FCA was amended in 1986, however, the Court
has decided a series of cases that cloak the States with an
increasingly protective mantle of “sovereign immunity” from