Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
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VERMONT AGENCY OF NATURAL RESOURCES v.
UNITED STATES ex rel. STEVENS
Opinion of the Court

499 (1975) (emphasis added); see also Sierra Club v. Morton,
It would perhaps sufﬁce to
405 U. S. 727, 734–735 (1972).
say that the relator here is simply the statutorily designated
agent of the United States, in whose name (as the statute
provides, see 31 U. S. C. § 3730(b)) the suit is brought—and
that the relator’s bounty is simply the fee he receives out
of the United States’ recovery for ﬁling and/or prosecuting a
successful action on behalf of the Government. This analy-
sis is precluded, however, by the fact that the statute gives
the relator himself an interest in the lawsuit, and not merely
the right to retain a fee out of the recovery. Thus, it pro-
vides that “[a] person may bring a civil action for a viola-
tion of section 3729 for the person and for the United States
Government,” § 3730(b) (emphasis added); gives the relator
“the right to continue as a party to the action” even when
the Government itself has assumed “primary responsibility”
for prosecuting it, § 3730(c)(1); entitles the relator to a hear-
ing before the Government’s voluntary dismissal of the suit,
§ 3730(c)(2)(A); and prohibits the Government from settling
the suit over the relator’s objection without a judicial de-
termination of “fair[ness], adequa[cy] and reasonable[ness],”
§ 3730(c)(2)(B). For the portion of the recovery retained by
the relator, therefore, some explanation of standing other
than agency for the Government must be identiﬁed.

There is no doubt, of course, that as to this portion of the
recovery—the bounty he will receive if the suit is success-
ful—a qui tam relator has a “concrete private interest in
the outcome of [the] suit.” Lujan, supra, at 573. But the
same might be said of someone who has placed a wager upon
the outcome. An interest unrelated to injury in fact is insuf-
ﬁcient to give a plaintiff standing. See Valley Forge Chris-
tian College v. Americans United for Separation of Church
and State, Inc., 454 U. S. 464, 486 (1982); Sierra Club, supra,
at 734–735. The interest must consist of obtaining com-
pensation for, or preventing, the violation of a legally pro-