Opinion ID: 6984428
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Bounty Theory

Text: Riley also argues that she has standing to pursue her FCA action because she has a concrete interest in the outcome of her lawsuit. She argues that the FCA provides a bounty for successful relators, see 31 U.S.C. § 3730(d), and relators thus have a concrete interest in succeeding in their fraud actions. Several courts have found standing on the basis of the relator having an interest in the outcome of the litigation. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Kreindler & Kreindler v. United Technologies Corp., 985 F.2d 1148, 1154 (2d Cir.1993). The Supreme Court, however, has required an injury — not merely an incentive or interest. Defendants contend that an incentive or interest is not an injury and will not satisfy Article Ill’s injury requirement. See Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 1368, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972) (existence of ideological interest to litigate vigorously is not sufficient basis for finding injury in fact); Valley Forge, 102 S.Ct. at 766 (“[s]tanding is not measured by the intensity of the litigant’s interest or the fervor of his advocacy.”). The presence of a statutory bounty for successful qui tam plaintiffs does not satisfy the injury requirement because the injury requirement does more than merely ensure that parties have an incentive to prosecute a claim vigorously. The requirement of a particularized and personal injury also ensures that the judiciary stays in its assigned role as arbiter of disputes and does not wander into the arena of policy making (the Legislature’s role) or ensuring the execution of laws (the Executive’s role). As the Lujan Court explained: If the concrete injury requirement has the separation-of-powers significance we have always said, the answer must be obvious: To permit Congress to convert the undifferentiated public interest in executive officers’ compliance with the law into an “individual right” vindicable in the courts is to permit Congress to transfer from the President to the courts the Chief Executive’s most important constitutional duty, to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” It would enable the courts, with the permission of Congress, “to assume a position of authority over the governmental acts of another and co-equal department,” and to become “ ‘virtually continuing monitors of the wisdom and soundness of Executive action.’ ” We have always rejected that vision of our role. 112 S.Ct. at 2145 (citations omitted); see also Antonin Scalia, The Doctrine of Standing As An Essential Element Of The Separation Of Powers, 17 Suffolk U.L.Rev. 881 (1983). Requiring merely an incentive, rather than an injury personal to the party in interest, would not adequately circumscribe the judiciary. Permitting a statutory bounty, standing alone, to vest a plaintiff with sufficient interest to bring suit inherently involves an impermissible encroachment upon the separation-of-powers principles that lie at the heart of the Constitution. I therefore conclude that the bounty theory must likewise fail.