Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-1326_6jfl.pdf
Page Number: 14.0

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

11 

Opinion of the Court 

Again, that tracks traditional common-law fraud, which
ordinarily  “depends  on  a  subjective  test”  and  the  defend-
ant’s “culpable state of mind.”  Id., §10, Comment a.  What 
typically matters at common law is whether the defendant
made  the  false  statement  “without  belief  in  its  truth  or 
recklessly, careless of whether it is true or false.”  Restate-
ment  (Second)  of  Torts  §526,  Comment  e.   If  a  defendant 
knows that he “lack[s an] honest belief ” in the statement’s
truth, that is often enough to establish scienter for fraud. 
Id., Comment d.; Dobbs §665, at 647. 

Both the text and the common law also point to what the
defendant  thought  when  submitting  the  false  claim—not 
what the defendant may have thought after submitting it.
As noted above, the text encompasses those who “knowingly 
presen[t] . . . a false or fraudulent claim”; the term “know-
ingly”  thus  modifies  present-tense  verbs  like  “presents.” 
§3729(a)(1)(A).  As  such,  the  focus  is  not,  as  respondents 
would have it, on post hoc interpretations that might have 
rendered their claims accurate.  It is instead on what the 
defendant knew when presenting the claim.  See also Re-
statement (Second) of Torts §526, Comment e (“It is enough
that being conscious that he has neither knowledge nor be-
lief in the existence of the matter he chooses to assert it as 
a fact”); accord, Halo Electronics, Inc. v. Pulse Electronics, 
Inc.,  579  U. S.  93,  105  (2016)  (“[C]ulpability  is  generally 
measured against the knowledge of the actor at the time of
the challenged conduct”). 

B 

The  difficulty  here,  however,  is  that  the  phrase  “usual 
and customary” is, on its face, less than perfectly clear.  We 
assume  (as  the  District  Court  ruled  in  SuperValu’s  case) 

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consider how (or whether) that objective form of “recklessness” relates to 
the FCA today because, as noted above, it is enough to say that the FCA’s
standards can be satisfied by a defendant’s subjective awareness of the 
claim’s falsity or an unjustifiable risk of such falsity.