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Page Number: 17.0

14  UNITED STATES EX REL. SCHUTTE v. SUPERVALU INC. 

Opinion of the Court 

conscious belief that his claims are false.
  Second, Safeco did not purport to set forth the purely ob-
jective  safe  harbor  that  respondents  invoke.    To  the  con-
trary,  Safeco  stated  that  a  person  is  reckless  if  he  acts 
“knowing  or  having  reason  to  know  of  facts  which  would 
lead a reasonable man to realize” that his actions were sub-
stantially risky.  551 U. S., at 69 (emphasis added; internal
quotation marks omitted).  Or, as Safeco alternatively put
it, the common law of recklessness contained an objective
standard because it encompassed actions involving “an un-
justifiably high risk of harm that is either known or so ob-
vious that it should be known.”  Id., at 68 (emphasis added;
internal  quotation  marks  omitted);  see  also  Restatement 
(Second)  of  Torts  §500,  Comment  a  (1964)  (“Recklessness
may consist of either of two different types of conduct.  In 
one the actor knows . . . of facts which create a high degree 
of risk”).  Thus, as we have stated previously, “[n]othing in 
Safeco suggests that we should look to facts that the defend-
ant  neither  knew  nor  had  reason  to  know  at  the  time  he 
acted.”  Halo Electronics, 579 U. S., at 106.6  By a similar 
token here, we do not look to legal interpretations that re-
spondents did not believe or have reason to believe at the
time they submitted their claims. 

3 
Respondents make one more argument, approaching the
issue from a somewhat different angle.  They contend that, 
at  common  law,  their  claims  would  not  be  actionable  as 
fraudulent even if their reported prices were not accurate 
under the correct meaning of “usual and customary.”  Their 
—————— 

6 Respondents read a footnote in Safeco to establish the sort of purely 
objective safe harbor for which they argue.  See Safeco, 551 U. S., at 70, 
n. 20.  But that footnote—even if it does deem subjective intent to be ir-
relevant in the FCRA context—certainly was not meant to establish the 
general  rule  for  the  terms  “knowing”  or  “reckless”  in  all  contexts.  Cf. 
Halo Electronics, 579 U. S., at 106, n. (distinguishing the footnote in the 
patent-infringement context).