Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 863

529US3

Unit: $U59

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788

VERMONT AGENCY OF NATURAL RESOURCES v.
UNITED STATES ex rel. STEVENS
Ginsburg, J., concurring in judgment

False Claims Act does not subject a State (or state agency)
to liability in such actions. The judgment of the Second
Circuit is reversed.

Justice Breyer, concurring.
I join the opinion of the Court in full.

opinion of Justice Ginsburg.

It is so ordered.

I also join the

Justice Ginsburg, with whom Justice Breyer joins,

concurring in the judgment.

I join the Court’s judgment and here state the extent to

which I subscribe to the Court’s opinion.

I agree with the Court that the qui tam relator is prop-
erly regarded as an assignee of a portion of the Govern-
ment’s claim for damages. See ante, at 773. And I agree,
most vitally, that “Article III’s restriction of the judicial
power to ‘Cases’ and ‘Controversies’
is properly under-
stood to mean ‘cases and controversies of the sort tradi-
tionally amenable to, and resolved by, the judicial process.’ ”
Ante, at 774. On that key matter, I again agree that his-
tory’s pages place the qui tam suit safely within the “case”
or “controversy” category. See ante, at 774–778.

In Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S.
83 (1998), I reasoned that if Congress did not authorize a
citizen suit, a court should dismiss the citizen suitor’s com-
plaint without opining “on the constitutionality of what Con-
Id., at 134 (opinion
gress might have done, but did not do.”
concurring in judgment).
I therefore agree that the Court
properly turns ﬁrst to the statutory question here presented:
Did Congress authorize qui tam suits against the States.
Concluding that Congress did not authorize such suits, the
Court has no cause to engage in an Eleventh Amendment
inquiry, and appropriately leaves that issue open.

I do not ﬁnd in the False Claims Act any clear statement
subjecting the States to qui tam suits brought by private