Opinion ID: 2669594
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Same Relator

Text: Shea’s second argument goes to the identity of the relator. Shea argues that the first-to-file bar applies only to litigants other than the relator who filed the original action. His argument runs as follows: The first-to-file bar prohibits subsequent relators from “intervene[ing] or bring[ing] . . . action[s]” related to a previously-filed action. 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(5). It would be nonsense, he argues, for a litigant to intervene in an action he himself brought. And because it would be nonsense for a relator to intervene in his own suit, “no person” in the statute cannot logically refer to the same relator—in fact, it must be understood to mean “no person other than the original relator.” We disagree. The text of the statute clearly directs that “no person” is allowed to bring a related suit. “[C]ourts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there.” Conn. Nat. Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 8 253–54 (1992). And it is not nonsense to disallow all persons—the original relator included—from bringing a related action. The statute is written in the disjunctive. A second relator need not be capable of both forms of prohibited behavior to be eligible for the prohibition. On Shea’s reasoning, a statute that provided that “no vehicles may fly over or drive through a field” could only apply to vehicles that could both fly and drive. No rule of grammar, logic, or the law compels such a reading. Nor are Shea’s policy arguments persuasive. Shea rightly points out that one purpose of the first-to-file bar is to encourage “whistleblowers to approach the government and file suit as early as possible.” See United States ex rel. Ortega v. Columbia Healthcare, Inc., 240 F. Supp. 2d 8, 12 (D.D.C. 2003). As he notes, a litigant cannot race himself to the courthouse or divide a bounty with himself. But Shea again ignores the other purpose: “rejecting suits which the government is capable of pursuing itself.” Batiste, 659 F.3d at 1208. The plain-text reading of the statute advances both goals. We therefore reject Shea’s argument that the first-to-file bar does not apply to an original relator.