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

(1623), and statutes were passed deterring and penalizing
vexatious informers, limiting the locations in which informer
suits could be brought, and subjecting such suits to relatively
short statutes of limitation, see Act to Redress Disorders in
Common Informers, 18 Eliz. I, ch. 5 (1576); Act Concerning
Informers, 31 Eliz. I, ch. 5 (1589); see generally Davies,
supra, at 63–76. Nevertheless, laws allowing qui tam suits
by informers continued to exist in England until 1951, when
all of the remaining ones were repealed. See Note, The His-
tory and Development of Qui Tam, 1972 Wash. U. L. Q. 81,
88, and n. 44 (citing Common Informers Act, 14 & 15 Geo. VI,
ch. 39 (1951)).

Qui tam actions appear to have been as prevalent in
America as in England, at least in the period immediately
before and after the framing of the Constitution. Although
there is no evidence that the Colonies allowed common-
law qui tam actions (which, as we have noted, were dying
out in England by that time), they did pass several
in-
former statutes expressly authorizing qui tam suits. See,
e. g., Act for the Restraining and Punishing of Privateers
and Pirates, 1st Assembly, 4th Sess. (N. Y. 1692), reprinted
in 1 Colonial Laws of New York 279, 281 (1894) (allowing
informers to sue for, and receive share of, ﬁne imposed
upon ofﬁcers who neglect their duty to pursue privateers
and pirates). Moreover, immediately after the framing, the
First Congress enacted a considerable number of informer
statutes.5 Like their English counterparts, some of them

5 In addition, the First Congress passed one statute allowing injured
parties to sue for damages on both their own and the United States’
behalf. See Act of May 31, 1790, ch. 15, § 2, 1 Stat. 124–125 (allowing
author or proprietor to sue for and receive half of penalty for violation
of copyright); cf. Act of Mar. 1, 1790, ch. 2, § 6, 1 Stat. 103 (allowing cen-
sus taker to sue for and receive half of penalty for failure to cooperate
in census); Act of July 5, 1790, ch. 25, § 1, 1 Stat. 129 (extending same to
Rhode Island).