Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 867.0

529US3

Unit: $U59

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VERMONT AGENCY OF NATURAL RESOURCES v.
UNITED STATES ex rel. STEVENS
Stevens, J., dissenting

had decried the “fraud and peculation” by state ofﬁcials in
connection with the procurement of military supplies and
Government contracts—speciﬁcally mentioning the pur-
chases of supplies by the States of Illinois, Indiana, New
York, and Ohio. See H. R. Rep. No. 2, 37th Cong., 2d Sess.,
pt. ii–a, pp. xxxviii–xxxix (1862). Although the FCA was
not enacted until the following year, the Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit correctly observed that “it is difﬁ-
cult to suppose that when Congress considered the bills
leading to the 1863 Act a year later it either meant to ex-
clude the States from the ‘persons’ who were to be liable for
presentation of false claims to the federal government or had
forgotten the results of this extensive investigation.” 162
F. 3d 195, 206 (1998). That observation is faithful to the
broad construction of the Act that this Court consistently
endorsed in cases decided before 1986 (and hardly requires
any “suspension of disbelief ” as the majority supposes, ante,
at 783, n. 12).

Thus, in United States v. Neifert-White Co., 390 U. S. 228,
232 (1968), after noting that the Act was passed as a result
of investigations of the fraudulent use of federal funds during
the Civil War, we inferred “that the Act was intended to
reach all types of fraud, without qualiﬁcation, that might re-
sult in ﬁnancial loss to the Government.” See also Rain-
water v. United States, 356 U. S. 590, 592 (1958) (“It seems
quite clear that the objective of Congress [in the FCA] was
broadly to protect the funds and property of the Government
from fraudulent claims”); H. R. Rep. No. 99–660, p. 18 (1986)
(“[T]he False Claims Act is used as . . . the primary vehicle
by the Government for recouping losses suffered through
fraud”).
Indeed, the fact that Congress has authorized
qui tam actions by private individuals to supplement the
remedies available to the Federal Government provides addi-
tional evidence of its intent to reach all types of fraud that
cause ﬁnancial loss to the Federal Government. Finally, the