Graham County Soil & Water Conservation District v. United States Ex Rel. Wilson

Syllabus NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued.

The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.

See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES Syllabus GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVA- TION DISTRICT ET AL. v. UNITED STATES EX REL.

WILSON

CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 08–304. Argued November 30, 2009—Decided March 30, 2010 The False Claims Act (FCA) authorizes both the Attorney General and private qui tam relators to recover from persons who make false or fraudulent payment claims to the United States, but it bars qui tam actions based upon the public disclosure of allegations or transactions in, inter alia, “a congressional, administrative, or Government Ac counting Office [(GAO)] report, hearing, audit, or investigation.” 31 U. S. C. §3730(e)(4)(A). Here, federal contracts provided that two North Carolina counties would remediate areas damaged by flooding and that the Federal Government would shoulder most of the costs.

Respondent Wilson, then an employee of a local government body in volved in this effort, alerted local and federal officials about possible fraud. Both the county and the State issued reports identifying po tential irregularities in the contracts’ administration. Subsequently, Wilson filed a qui tam action, alleging, as relevant here, that peti tioners, county conservation districts and local and federal officials, knowingly submitted false payment claims in violation of the FCA.

The District Court ultimately dismissed for lack of jurisdiction be cause Wilson had not refuted that her action was based upon allega tions publicly disclosed in the county and state reports, which it held were “administrative” reports under the FCA’s public disclosure bar.

In reversing, the Fourth Circuit concluded that only federal adminis trative reports may trigger the public disclosure bar.

Held: The reference to “administrative” reports, audits, and investiga tions in §3730(e)(4)(A) encompasses disclosures made in state and lo cal sources as well as federal sources. Pp. 4–21.

2 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON Syllabus

(a) Section 3730(e)(4)(A) specifies three categories of disclosures that can deprive federal courts of jurisdiction over qui tam suits. The language at issue is contained in the second category (Category 2).

Pp. 4–5. (b) The FCA’s plain text does not limit “administrative” to federal sources. Because that term modifies “report, hearing, audit, or inves tigation” in a provision about “the public disclosure” of fraud on the United States, it is most naturally read to describe government agency activities. But since “administrative” is not itself modified by “federal,” there is no immediately apparent basis for excluding state and local agency activities from its ambit. The interpretive maxim noscitur a sociis—“a word may be known by the company it keeps,” Russell Motor Car Co. v. United States, 261 U. S. 514, 519—does not support the Fourth Circuit’s more limited view. In Category 2, “ad ministrative” is sandwiched between the federal terms “congres sional” and “[GAO],” but these items are too few and too disparate to qualify as “a string of statutory terms,” S. D. Warren Co. v. Maine Bd. of Environmental Protection, 547 U. S. 370, 378, or “items in a list,” Beecham v. United States, 511 U. S. 368, 371, for noscitur a so ciis purposes. Furthermore, evaluating “administrative” within the public disclosure bar’s larger scheme, the Court observes that Cate gory 2’s terms are themselves sandwiched between phrases in Cate gory 1 (“criminal, civil, or administrative hearing”) and Category 3 (“news media”) that are generally understood to include nonfederal sources; and Category 1 contains the same term (“administrative”) that is at issue. Even if Category 1 were best understood to refer to adjudicative proceedings and Category 2 to legislative or quasi legislative activities, state and local administrative sources of a legis lative-type character are presumably just as public, and just as likely to put the Federal Government on notice of a potential fraud, as state and local administrative hearings of an adjudicatory character. The FCA’s overall federal focus shines no light on the specific question whether the public disclosure bar extends to nonfederal contexts.

And the fact that state legislative sources are not included in §3730(e)(4)(A) carries no clear implications for the status of state administrative sources. Pp. 5–12. (c) The legislative record does not support an exclusively federal in terpretation of “administrative.” The current §3730(e)(4)(A) was en acted to strike a balance between encouraging private persons to root out fraud and stifling parasitic lawsuits. How exactly the statute came to strike this balance as it did is uncertain, as significant sub stantive changes—including the introduction of “administrative” in Category 2—were inserted without floor debate or other discussion, as “technical” amendments. Though Congress wanted “to strengthen the Government’s hand in fighting false claims,” Cook County v. United States ex rel. Chandler, 538 U. S. 119, 133–134, and encour age more qui tam suits, it also determined to bar a subset of those suits that it deemed unmeritorious or downright harmful. The ques tion here concerns that subset’s precise scope; and on that matter, the record is all but opaque, leaving no “evident legislative purpose” to guide resolution of this discrete issue, United States v. Bornstein, 423 U. S. 303, 310. Pp. 12–18. (d) Respondent’s additional arguments in favor of limiting “admin istrative” to federal sources are unpersuasive. Pp. 18–20. 528 F. 3d 292, reversed and remanded.

STEVENS, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KENNEDY, THOMAS, GINSBURG, and ALITO, JJ., joined, and in which SCALIA, J., joined except as to Part IV. SCALIA, J., filed an opin ion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment. SOTOMAYOR, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which BREYER, J., joined.

NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the preliminary print of the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Wash ington, D. C. 20543, of any typographical or other formal errors, in order that corrections may be made before the preliminary print goes to press.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 08–304 _________________

GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVA- TION DISTRICT, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. UNITED STATES EX REL. KAREN T. WILSON ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT [March 30, 2010]

JUSTICE STEVENS delivered the opinion of the Court.

Since its enactment during the Civil War, the False Claims Act, 31 U. S. C. §§3729–3733, has authorized both the Attorney General and private qui tam relators to recover from persons who make false or fraudulent claims for payment to the United States. The Act now contains a provision barring qui tam actions based upon the public disclosure of allegations or transactions in certain speci fied sources. §3730(e)(4)(A). The question before us is whether the reference to “administrative” reports, audits, and investigations in that provision encompasses disclo sures made in state and local sources as well as federal sources. We hold that it does.1 2 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON Opinion of the Court

I In 1995 the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) entered into contracts with two counties in North Carolina authorizing them to perform, or to hire others to perform, cleanup and repair work in areas that had suf fered extensive flooding. The Federal Government agreed to shoulder 75 percent of the contract costs. Respondent Karen T. Wilson was at that time an employee of the Graham County Soil and Conservation District, a special purpose government body that had been delegated partial responsibility for coordinating and performing the reme diation effort. Suspecting possible fraud in connection with this effort, Wilson voiced her concerns to local offi cials in the summer of 1995. She also sent a letter to, and had a meeting with, agents of the USDA.

Graham County officials began an investigation. An accounting firm hired by the county performed an audit and, in 1996, issued a report (Audit Report) that identified several potential irregularities in the county’s administra tion of the contracts. Shortly thereafter, the North Caro lina Department of Environment, Health, and Natural Resources issued a report (DEHNR Report) identifying similar problems. The USDA’s Office of Inspector General eventually issued a third report that contained additional findings.

In 2001 Wilson filed this action, alleging that petition ers, the Graham County and Cherokee County Soil and Water Conservation Districts and a number of local and federal officials, violated the False Claims Act (FCA) by knowingly submitting false claims for payment pursuant to the 1995 contracts. She further alleged that petitioners retaliated against her for aiding the federal investigation of those false claims. Following this Court’s review of the statute of limitations applicable to Wilson’s retaliation claim, Graham County Soil & Water Conservation Dist. v. United States ex rel. Wilson, 545 U. S. 409 (2005), the Court of Appeals ordered that that claim be dismissed as time barred. 424 F. 3d 437 (CA4 2005). On remand, the District Court subsequently dismissed Wilson’s qui tam action for lack of jurisdiction. App. to Pet. for Cert. 95a– 105a. The court found that Wilson had failed to refute that her action was based upon allegations publicly dis closed in the Audit Report and the DEHNR Report. Id., at 95a–98a. Those reports, the District Court determined, constituted “administrative . . . report[s], . . . audit[s], or investigation[s]” within the meaning of the FCA’s public disclosure bar, 31 U. S. C. §3730(e)(4)(A).

The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of the District Court because the reports had been generated by state and local entities. “[O]nly federal administrative reports, audits or investigations,” the Fourth Circuit concluded, “qualify as public disclosures under the FCA.” 528 F. 3d 292, 301 (2008) (emphasis added). The Circuits having divided over this issue,2 we granted certiorari to resolve the conflict. 557 U. S. __ (2009).

4 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON Opinion of the Court

II We have examined the FCA’s qui tam provisions in several recent opinions.3 At issue in this case is the FCA’s public disclosure bar, which deprives courts of jurisdiction over qui tam suits when the relevant information has already entered the public domain through certain chan nels. The statute contains three categories of jurisdiction stripping disclosures. Following the example of the Court of Appeals, see 528 F. 3d, at 300–301, we have inserted Arabic numerals to identify these categories: “No court shall have jurisdiction over an action under this section based upon the public disclosure of allega tions or transactions [1] in a criminal, civil, or admin istrative hearing, [2] in a congressional, administra tive, or Government Accounting Office [(GAO)] report, hearing, audit, or investigation, or [3] from the news media, unless the action is brought by the Attorney General or the person bringing the action is an origi nal source[4] of the information.” §3730(e)(4)(A) (foot note omitted).

This dispute turns on the meaning of the adjective “ad ministrative” in the second category (Category 2): whether it embraces only forums that are federal in nature, as respondent alleges, or whether it extends to disclosures made in state and local sources such as the DEHNR Re port and the Audit Report, as petitioners allege.

In debating this question, petitioners have relied pri marily on the statute’s text whereas respondent and the Solicitor General, as her amicus, have relied heavily on considerations of history and policy. Although there is some overlap among the three types of argument, it is useful to discuss them separately. We begin with the text.

III The term “administrative” “may, in various contexts, bear a range of related meanings,” Chandler v. Judicial Council of Tenth Circuit, 398 U. S. 74, 103, n. 8 (1970) (Harlan, J., concurring in denial of writ), pertaining to private bodies as well as to governmental bodies. When used to modify the nouns “report, hearing, audit, or inves tigation,” in the context of a statutory provision about “the public disclosure” of fraud on the United States, the term is most naturally read to describe the activities of govern mental agencies. See Black’s Law Dictionary 49 (9th ed. 2009) (hereinafter Black’s) (defining “administration,” “[i]n public law, [as] the practical management and direction of the executive department and its agencies”). Given that “administrative” is not itself modified by “federal,” there is no immediately apparent textual basis for excluding the activities of state and local agencies (or their contractors) from its ambit. As the Court of Appeals recognized, “the statute by its express terms does not limit its reach to federal administrative reports or investigations.” 528 F. 3d, at 301. “[T]here is nothing inherently federal about the word ‘administrative,’ and Congress did not define the term in the FCA.” Id., at 302.

The Court of Appeals’ conclusion that “administrative” nevertheless reaches only federal sources rested on its application of the interpretive maxim noscitur a sociis.

See id., at 302–305. This maxim, literally translated as “ ‘it is known by its associates,’ ” Black’s 1160, counsels 6 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON Opinion of the Court lawyers reading statutes that “a word may be known by the company it keeps,” Russell Motor Car Co. v. United States, 261 U. S. 514, 519 (1923). All participants in this litigation acknowledge that the terms “congressional” and “[GAO]” are federal in nature; Congress is the Legislative Branch of the Federal Government,5 and the GAO is a federal agency.6 Relying on our opinions in S. D. Warren Co. v. Maine Bd. of Environmental Protection, 547 U. S. 370 (2006), and Beecham v. United States, 511 U. S. 368 (1994), the Court of Appeals reasoned that “the placement of ‘administrative’ squarely in the middle of a list of obvi ously federal sources strongly suggests that ‘administra tive’ should likewise be restricted to federal administrative reports, hearings, audits, or investigations.” 528 F. 3d, at 302. In so holding, the Court of Appeals embraced what we might call the Sandwich Theory of the Third Circuit.

Both courts “ ‘f[ou]nd it hard to believe that the drafters of this provision intended the word “administrative” to refer to both state and federal reports when it lies sandwiched between modifiers which are unquestionably federal in character.’ ” Ibid. (quoting United States ex rel. Dunleavy v. County of Delaware, 123 F. 3d 734, 745 (CA3 1997)).

We find this use of noscitur a sociis unpersuasive. A list of three items, each quite distinct from the other no mat ter how construed, is too short to be particularly illuminat ing. Although this list may not be “completely disjunc tive,” 528 F. 3d, at 302—it refers to “congressional, administrative, or [GAO]” sources, §3730(e)(4)(A), rather than “congressional, or administrative, or [GAO]” sources—neither is it completely harmonious. The sub stantive connection, or fit, between the terms “congres sional,” “administrative,” and “GAO” is not so tight or so self-evident as to demand that we “rob” any one of them “of its independent and ordinary significance.” Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 338–339 (1979); see also Russell, 261 U. S., at 519 (“That a word may be known by the company it keeps is . . . not an invariable rule, for the word may have a character of its own not to be submerged by its association”). The adjectives in Category 2 are too few and too disparate to qualify as “a string of statutory terms,” S. D. Warren Co., 547 U. S., at 378, or “items in a list,” Beecham, 511 U. S., at 371, in the sense that we used those phrases in the cited cases.7 8 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON Opinion of the Court

More important, we need to evaluate “administrative” within the larger scheme of the public disclosure bar.

Both parties acknowledge, as they must, that “[s]tatutory language has meaning only in context,” Graham County Soil, 545 U. S., at 415; where they differ is in determining the relevant context. The Sandwich Theory presupposes that Category 2 is the only piece of §3730(e)(4)(A) that matters. We agree with petitioners, however, that all of the sources listed in §3730(e)(4)(A) provide interpretive guidance. All of these sources drive at the same end: specifying the types of disclosures that can foreclose qui tam actions. In light of the public disclosure bar’s gram matical structure, it may be convenient and even clarify ing to parse the list of sources into three categories. But it does not follow that we should treat these categories as islands unto themselves. Courts have a “duty to construe statutes, not isolated provisions.” Gustafson v. Alloyd Co., 513 U. S. 561, 568 (1995).

When we consider the entire text of the public disclosure bar, the case for limiting “administrative” to federal sources becomes significantly weaker. The “news media” referenced in Category 3 plainly have a broader sweep.

The Federal Government funds certain media outlets, and certain private outlets have a national focus; but no one contends that Category 3 is limited to these sources.

There is likewise no textual basis for assuming that the “criminal, civil, or administrative hearing[s]” listed in Category 1 must be federal hearings.8 Of the numerous types of sources that serve a common function in §3730(e)(4)(A), then, only two are distinctly federal in nature, while one (the news media) is distinctly nonfederal in nature.

If the Court of Appeals was correct that the term “ad ministrative” encompasses state and local sources in Category 1, see 528 F. 3d, at 303, it becomes even harder to see why the term would not do the same in Category 2.

See Erlenbaugh v. United States, 409 U. S. 239, 243 (1972) (“[A] legislative body generally uses a particular word with a consistent meaning in a given context”). Respondent and the Solicitor General assert that §3730(e)(4)(A)’s two references to “administrative” can be distinguished be cause Category 1 is best understood to refer to adjudica tive proceedings, whereas Category 2 is best understood to refer to legislative or quasi-legislative activities such as rulemaking, oversight, and investigations. See Brief for Respondent 16–18; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 25–26 (hereinafter Brief for United States). Yet even if this reading were correct, state and local adminis trative reports, hearings, audits, and investigations of a legislative-type character are presumably just as public, and just as likely to put the Federal Government on notice of a potential fraud, as state and local administrative hearings of an adjudicatory character.9 —————— Sylvia, The False Claims Act: Fraud Against the Government §11:35, p. 642 (2004) (hereinafter Sylvia).

Moving from the narrow lens of the Sandwich Theory to a bird’s eye view, respondent and the Solicitor General also maintain that the “exclusively federal focus” of the FCA counsels against reading the public disclosure bar to encompass nonfederal sources. Brief for Respondent 10, 18; Brief for United States 13. The FCA undoubtedly has a federal focus. But so does every other federal statute. —————— narrowly would have the anomalous result of allowing public disclosure status to the most obscure local news report and the most obscure state and local civil lawsuit or administrative hearing, but denying public disclosure status to a formal public report of a state government agency”).

Brief for Respondent 23–24. At least one other Circuit, however, has done the same, see United States ex rel. Hafter v. Spectrum Emergency Care, Inc., 190 F. 3d 1156, 1161, n. 6 (CA10 1999), and no lower court, as far as we are aware, has so much as suggested that an alternative construction might be viable. Moreover, the Third, Fifth, and Eleventh Circuit cases cited by the Court of Appeals postdate A-1 Ambulance and Dunleavy, 123 F. 3d 734, both of which put litigants and courts on notice of the possibility that §3730(e)(4)(A) might be limited to federal sources.

And as respondent and the Solicitor General elsewhere acknowledge, quite a few aspects of the FCA, including a reference to “administrative” proceedings in §3733(l) (7)(A)11 and the reference to “news media” in §3730(e)(4)(A) itself, are not just federal. In any event, the “federal focus” of the statute, as a whole, does not shine light on the specific question whether the public disclosure bar extends to certain nonfederal contexts. It is the fact of “public disclosure”—not Federal Government creation or receipt—that is the touchstone of §3730(e)(4)(A).

Respondent and the Solicitor General make one last argument grounded in the statutory text: It would be anomalous, they say, for state and local administrative reports to count as public disclosures, when state legisla tive reports do not. See Brief for Respondent 15; Brief for United States 15–16. Yet neither respondent nor the Solicitor General disputes the contention of petitioners and their amici that, at the time the public disclosure bar was enacted in 1986, Congress rarely gave state legisla tures a meaningful role in administering or overseeing federally funded programs. See Brief for Petitioners 36– 39; Brief for National League of Cities et al. as Amici Curiae 8–13. As in the instant case, the Federal Govern ment was far more likely to enter into contracts with, and to provide moneys to, state and local executive agencies.

Whether or not state legislative sources should have been included in §3730(e)(4)(A), their exclusion therefore car ries no clear implications for the status of state adminis trative sources.

In sum, although the term “administrative” may be sandwiched in Category 2 between terms that are federal 12 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON Opinion of the Court in nature, those terms are themselves sandwiched be tween phrases that have been generally understood to include nonfederal sources; and one of those phrases, in Category 1, contains the exact term that is the subject of our inquiry. These textual clues negate the force of the noscitur a sociis canon, as it was applied by the Court of Appeals.12 We are not persuaded that the associates with which “administrative” keeps company in §3730(e)(4)(A) endow it with an exclusively federal character.

IV As originally enacted, the FCA did not limit the sources from which a relator could acquire the information to bring a qui tam action. In United States ex rel. Marcus v. Hess, 317 U. S. 537 (1943), we upheld the relator’s recov ery even though he had discovered the fraud by reading a federal criminal indictment—a quintessential “parasitic” suit. Id., at 545–548; see id., at 545 (“Even if, as the gov ernment suggests, the petitioner has contributed nothing to the discovery of this crime, he has contributed much to accomplishing one of the purposes for which the Act was passed”). Congress promptly reacted to that decision by amending the statute to preclude qui tam actions “based upon evidence or information in the possession of the United States, or any agency, officer or employee thereof, at the time such suit was brought.” Act of Dec. 23, 1943, 57 Stat. 609 (codified at 31 U. S. C. §232(C) (1946 ed.)).

This amendment erected what came to be known as a Government knowledge bar: “[O]nce the United States learned of a false claim, only the Government could assert its rights under the FCA against the false claimant.”

Hughes Aircraft Co. v. United States ex rel. Schumer, 520 U. S. 939, 949 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted).

In the years that followed the 1943 amendment, the vol ume and efficacy of qui tam litigation dwindled. “Seeking the golden mean between adequate incentives for whistle blowing insiders with genuinely valuable information and discouragement of opportunistic plaintiffs who have no significant information to contribute of their own,” United States ex rel. Springfield Terminal R. Co. v. Quinn, 14 F. 3d 645, 649 (CADC 1994), Congress overhauled the statute once again in 1986 “to make the FCA a ‘more useful tool against fraud in modern times,’ ” Cook County v. United States ex rel. Chandler, 538 U. S. 119, 133 (2003) (quoting S. Rep. No. 99–345, p. 2 (1986) (hereinafter S.

Rep.)).

The present text of §3730(e)(4) was enacted in 1986 as part of this larger reform. Congress apparently concluded that a total bar on qui tam actions based on information already in the Government’s possession thwarted a sig nificant number of potentially valuable claims. Rather than simply repeal the Government knowledge bar, how ever, Congress replaced it with the public disclosure bar in an effort to strike a balance between encouraging private persons to root out fraud and stifling parasitic lawsuits such as the one in Hess. How exactly §3730(e)(4) came to strike this balance in the way it did is a matter of consid erable uncertainty. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees each reported bills that contained very differ ent public disclosure bars from the one that emerged in the Statutes at Large; the Senate bill, for example, did not 14 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON Opinion of the Court include the words “administrative,” “audit,” or “investiga tion” in its version of Category 2, nor did it contain an original source exception. See S. Rep., at 42–43 (text of proposed §3730(e)(4)).13 In respondent and her amici’s view, this background counsels in favor of an exclusively federal interpretation of “administrative” for three separate reasons. First, the drafting history of the public disclosure bar suggests that Congress intended such a result. Second, a major aim of the 1986 amendments was to limit the scope of the Gov ernment knowledge bar, and “[c]onstruing [§3730(e)(4)(A)] as limited to disclosures in federal proceedings furthers Congress’s purpose ‘to encourage more private enforce ment suits.’ ” Brief for United States 21 (quoting S. Rep., at 23–24). Third, whereas federal administrative proceed ings can be presumed to provide the Attorney General with a fair opportunity to decide whether to bring an FCA action based on revelations made therein, the Attorney General is much less likely to learn of fraud disclosed in state proceedings. Respondent and her amici further maintain that it would be perverse to include nonfederal sources in Category 2, as local governments would then be able to shield themselves from qui tam liability by dis cretely disclosing evidence of fraud in “public” reports.14 These arguments are reasonable so far as they go, but they do not go very far. As many have observed, the draft ing history of the public disclosure bar raises more ques tions than it answers.15 Significant substantive changes— including the introduction of the term we are construing in this case—were inserted without floor debate, as “techni cal” amendments. That the original Senate bill mentioned only congressional and GAO sources in Category 2 is therefore of little moment. Neither the House nor the Senate Committee Report explained why a federal limita tion would be appropriate, and the subsequent addition of “administrative” sources to this Category might be taken as a sign that such a limitation was rejected by the full Chambers.16 —————— Prudential Ins. Co., 944 F. 2d 1149, 1154 (CA3 1991) (“The bill that eventuated in the 1986 amendments underwent substantial revisions during its legislative path. This provides ample opportunity to search the legislative history and find some support somewhere for almost any construction of the many ambiguous terms in the final version”); id., at 1163 (Scirica, J., dissenting) (“One difficulty in interpreting the 1986 amendments is that Congress was never completely clear about what kind of ‘parasitic’ suits it was attempting to avoid”); Boese §4.02[A], at 4–46 (“The present Section 3730(e)(4) was enacted . . . without explana tion by Congress”); id., §4.02[A], at 4–47 to 4–48 (“[A]pplicable legisla tive history explaining versions [of §3730(e)(4)] not adopted is of little help in deciphering this provision. Because Section 3730(e)(4) was drafted subsequent to the completion of the House and Senate Commit tee reports on the proposed False Claims Act Amendments, those reports, which contained discussion of altogether different bars, cannot be used in interpreting it. And the sponsors’ interpretations of the provision ultimately enacted . . . are spare, often incorrect, and wide ranging enough to provide some support for almost any construction of its many ambiguities”).

In a floor statement, Grassley said that “the term ‘Gov ernment’ in the definition of original source is meant to include any Government source of disclosures cited in [the public disclosure bar]; that is[,] Government includes Congress, the General Accounting Office, any executive or independent agency as well as all other governmental bodies that may have publicly disclosed the allegations.”

132 Cong. Rec. 20536 (1986). Yet even if a single sentence by a single legislator were entitled to any meaningful weight, Senator Grassley’s remark merely begs the ques tion before us. His formulation fails to indicate whether the “other governmental bodies” may be state or local bodies. It also turns on a term, “Government” with a capital “G,” that does not appear in the codified version of the public disclosure bar, which Congress subsequently revised in numerous respects prior to passage.

There is, in fact, only one item in the legislative record that squarely corroborates respondent’s reading of the statute: a letter sent by the primary sponsors of the 1986 amendments to the Attorney General in 1999. See 145 Cong. Rec. 16032 (1999) (reproducing text of letter in which Rep. Berman and Sen. Grassley state: “We did intend, and any fair reading of the statute will confirm, that the disclosure must be in a federal criminal, civil or administrative hearing. Disclosure in a state proceeding —————— on the matter. In our view, neither the general trajectory of 20th century FCA reform nor the specific statements made during the 1986 legislative process clearly point one way or the other on the question before us. of any kind should not be a bar to a subsequent qui tam suit”). Needless to say, this letter does not qualify as legislative “history,” given that it was written 13 years after the amendments were enacted. It is consequently of scant or no value for our purposes.17 We do not doubt that Congress passed the 1986 amendments to the FCA “to strengthen the Government’s hand in fighting false claims,” Cook County, 538 U. S., at 133–134, and “to encourage more private enforcement suits,” S. Rep., at 23–24. It is equally beyond cavil, how ever, that Congress passed the public disclosure bar to bar a subset of those suits that it deemed unmeritorious or downright harmful. The question before us concerns the precise scope of that subset; and on this matter, the record is all but opaque. While “the absence of specific legislative history in no way modifies the conventional judicial duty to give faithful meaning to the language Congress adopted in the light of the evident legislative purpose in enacting the law in question,” United States v. Bornstein, 423 U. S.

18 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON Opinion of the Court 303, 310 (1976), there is no “evident legislative purpose” to guide our resolution of the discrete issue that confronts us.

V Respondent and her amici likewise fail to prove their case that petitioners’ reading of the statute will lead to results that Congress could not have intended. Their argument rests on an empirical proposition: “While federal inquiries and their outcomes are readily available to De partment of Justice [(DOJ)] attorneys, many state and local reports and investigations never come to the atten tion of federal authorities.” Brief for United States 22; see also 528 F. 3d, at 306 (“Because the federal government is unlikely to learn about state and local investigations, a large number of fraudulent claims against the government would go unremedied without the financial incentives offered by the qui tam provisions of the FCA”). This proposition is not implausible, but it is sheer conjecture.

Numerous federal investigations may be occurring at any given time, and DOJ attorneys may not reliably learn about their findings. DOJ attorneys may learn about quite a few state and local inquiries, especially when the inquiries are conducted pursuant to a joint federal-state program financed in part by federal dollars, such as the program at issue in this case.18 Just how accessible to the Attorney General a typical state or local source will be, as compared to a federal source, is an open question. And it is not even the right question. The statutory touchstone, once again, is whether the allegations of fraud have been “public[ly] disclos[ed],” §3730(e)(4)(A), not whether they have landed on the desk of a DOJ lawyer.

Respondent’s argument also gives insufficient weight to Congress’ decision to bar qui tam actions based on disclo sures “from the news media.” Ibid. Because there was no such bar prior to 1986, the addition of the news media as a jurisdiction-stripping category forecloses the suggestion that the 1986 amendments implemented a single-minded intent to increase the availability of qui tam litigation.

And since the “news media” include a large number of local newspapers and radio stations, this category likely describes a multitude of sources that would seldom come to the attention of the Attorney General.

As for respondent and her amici’s concern that local governments will insulate themselves from qui tam liabil ity “through careful, low key ‘disclosures’ ” of potential fraud, Brief for American Center for Law and Justice as Amicus Curiae 17, this argument rests not just on specu lation but indeed on rather strained speculation. Any such disclosure would not immunize the local government from FCA liability in an action brought by the United States, see Rockwell Int’l Corp. v. United States, 549 U. S. 457, 478 (2007)—and to the contrary it could tip off the Attorney General that such an action might be fruitful. It seems to us that petitioners have the more clear-eyed view when they assert that, “[g]iven the fact that the submis sion of a false claim to the United States subjects a defen dant to criminal liability, fines, debarment, treble dam ages and attorneys’ fees, no rational entity would prepare a report that self-discloses fraud with the sole purpose of cutting off qui tam actions.” Reply Brief for Petitioners 19; see also United States ex rel. Bly-Magee v. Premo, 470 F. 3d 914, 919 (CA9 2006) (“The fear [of self-insulating disclosures] is unfounded in general because it is unlikely 20 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON Opinion of the Court that an agency trying to cover up its fraud would reveal the requisite ‘allegations or transactions’ underlying the fraud in a public document”).19 Our conclusion is buttressed by the fact that Congress carefully preserved the rights of the most deserving qui tam plaintiffs: those whistle-blowers who qualify as origi nal sources. Notwithstanding public disclosure of the allegations made by a qui tam plaintiff, her case may go forward if she is “an original source of the information.”

§3730(e)(4)(A). It is therefore flat wrong to suggest that a finding for petitioners will “ ‘in effect return us to the unduly restrictive “government knowledge” standard’ ” that prevailed prior to 1986. Brief for United States 31 (quoting Dunleavy, 123 F. 3d, at 746); see Brief for Re spondent 34 (asserting that “petitioners’ construction would reimpose a form of the ‘government knowledge’ bar” (capitalization omitted)). Today’s ruling merely confirms that disclosures made in one type of context—a state or local report, audit, or investigation—may trigger the public disclosure bar. It has no bearing on disclosures made in other contexts, and it leaves intact the ability of original sources to prosecute qui tam actions irrespective of the state of Government knowledge. Whether respon dent can qualify as an “original source,” as that term is defined in §3730(e)(4), is one of many issues that remain open on remand.

VI Respondent and the Solicitor General have given nu merous reasons why they believe their reading of the FCA moves it closer to the golden mean between an inadequate and an excessive scope for private enforcement. Congress may well have endorsed those views in its recent amend ment to the public disclosure bar. See n. 1, supra. With respect to the version of §3730(e)(4)(A) that is before us, however, we conclude that the term “administrative” in Category 2 is not limited to federal sources.

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

It is so ordered.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 08–304 _________________

GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVA- TION DISTRICT, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. UNITED STATES EX REL. KAREN T. WILSON ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT [March 30, 2010]

JUSTICE SCALIA, concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.

I join Parts I–III and V–VI of the Court’s opinion. As for Part IV, I agree that the stray snippets of legislative his tory respondent, the Solicitor General, and the dissent have collected prove nothing at all about Congress’s pur pose in enacting 31 U. S. C. §3730(e)(4)(A). Ante, at 14– 18. But I do not share the Court’s premise that if a “ ‘legis lative purpose’ ” were “ ‘evident’ ” from such history it would make any difference. Ante, at 17 (quoting United States v. Bornstein, 423 U. S. 303, 310 (1976)). The Con stitution gives legal effect to the “Laws” Congress enacts, Art. VI, cl. 2, not the objectives its Members aimed to achieve in voting for them. See Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U. S. 75, 79–80 (1998). If §3730(e)(4)(A)’s text includes state and local administra tive reports and audits, as the Court correctly concludes it does, then it is utterly irrelevant whether the Members of Congress intended otherwise. Anyway, it is utterly impos sible to discern what the Members of Congress intended except to the extent that intent is manifested in the only remnant of “history” that bears the unanimous endorse ment of the majority in each House: the text of the en rolled bill that became law.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES _________________ No. 08–304 _________________

GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVA- TION DISTRICT, ET AL., PETITIONERS v. UNITED STATES EX REL. KAREN T. WILSON ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT [March 30, 2010]

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR, with whom JUSTICE BREYER joins, dissenting.

The False Claims Act (FCA) divests federal courts of jurisdiction to hear qui tam lawsuits based on allegations or transactions publicly disclosed in a “congressional, administrative, or Government Accounting Office [(GAO)] report, hearing, audit, or investigation,” unless the qui tam relator is an “original source” of the information. 31 U. S. C. §3730(e)(4)(A) (footnote omitted). Today, the Court reads the phrase “administrative . . . report, hear ing, audit, or investigation” to encompass not only federal, but also state and local, government sources. In my view, the Court misreads the statutory text and gives insuffi cient weight to contextual and historical evidence of Con gress’ purpose in enacting §3730. I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals and hold that “adminis trative” in the above-quoted provision refers only to Fed eral Government sources.1 2 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting

I Section 3730(e)(4)(A) sets forth three categories of “pub lic disclosure[s]” that trigger the FCA’s jurisdictional bar: “allegations or transactions [1] in a criminal, civil, or administrative hearing, [2] in a congressional, administra tive, or [GAO] report, hearing, audit, or investigation, or [3] from the news media.”2 (Like the majority, I have inserted Arabic numerals and refer to the three phrases as “categories.”) “It is a ‘fundamental canon of statutory construction that the words of a statute must be read in their context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.’ ” FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp., 529 U. S. 120, 133 (2000) (quoting Davis v. Michi gan Dept. of Treasury, 489 U. S. 803, 809 (1989)). No party here disputes that “congressional” and “[GAO]” refer only to Federal Government sources. Ante, at 6, and nn.

5–6. As the Court acknowledges, ante, at 5, the word “administrative” is more capacious, potentially reaching not only federal, state, and local government sources but also disclosures by private entities. See, e.g., Black’s Law Dictionary 42 (5th ed. 1979) (defining “administrative” as “pertain[ing] to administration, especially management, . . . [of] the execution, application or conduct of persons or things”).

Like the Court of Appeals, I view Congress’ choice of two “clearly federal terms [to] bookend the not-so-clearly fed eral term” as a “very strong contextual cue about the meaning of ‘administrative.’ ” 528 F. 3d 292, 302 (CA4 2008). “ ‘The maxim noscitur a sociis, . . . while not an inescapable rule, is often wisely applied where a word is capable of many meanings in order to avoid the giving of unintended breadth to the Acts of Congress.’ ” Gutierrez v. Ada, 528 U. S. 250, 255 (2000) (quoting Jarecki v. G. D.

Searle & Co., 367 U. S. 303, 307 (1961)). Here, the imme diate proximity of “congressional” and “[GAO]” suggests that “administrative” should be read, like its neighbors, as referring to Federal Government sources. If Congress had intended to include state or local government administra tive materials, it could have said so, for instance by refer ring generically to “governmental” sources. See 528 F. 3d, at 304–305.

The Court applies the logic that underlies the noscitur a sociis canon in concluding that “administrative” does not refer to private entities because of the meaning suggested by the slightly more distant neighbors “report, hearing, audit, or investigation.” See ante, at 5. I agree with the majority that “administrative” in this context does not reach private entities. But in my view, “congressional” and “[GAO]” provide the better textual grounding for that conclusion. I see no reason why the “administrati[on]” of a private university, for instance, could not issue a “report,” order an “audit” or “investigation,” or conduct a “hearing.”

Nor, contrary to the majority’s suggestion, are private entities—particularly those receiving federal funds or participating in federal programs—incapable of making “public disclosure[s]” of fraud on the Federal Government.

Despite its own implicit reliance on the canon, the Court nevertheless rejects the Court of Appeals’ application of noscitur a sociis to interpret the three terms in Category 2, concluding that “[a] list of three items, each quite distinct from the other no matter how construed, is too short to be particularly illuminating.” Ante, at 6–7. The three terms in Category 2, the Court concludes, are “too few and too disparate” to justify invocation of noscitur a sociis. Ante, at 7. We have not previously constrained the canon in this way, and I would not do so here.

To take just one example, in Jarecki we construed the 4 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting statutory term “ ‘abnormal income,’ ” which the statute defined to include income resulting from “ ‘exploration, discovery, or prospecting.’ ” 367 U. S., at 304–305 (quoting §456(a) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1939). Recogniz ing that the word “ ‘[d]iscovery’ ” is “usable in many con texts and with various shades of meaning,” we observed that it “gathers meaning from the words around it” and concluded that “[t]he three words in conjunction . . . all describe income-producing activity in the oil and gas and mining industries.” Id., at 307. As a result, and in light of other contextual evidence supporting the same conclusion, we held that sales of newly invented drugs or camera equipment did not give rise to “abnormal income” even if such inventions might otherwise be understood as “dis cover[ies].” See id., at 307–313. In my view, the three terms in Category 2 are no more “distinct” or “disparate,” ante, at 7, than the phrase at issue in Jarecki, particularly given the expansive plain meaning of “discovery.” Cf. ante, at 7, n. 7. Here, application of the noscitur a sociis principle readily yields a common feature: The sources at issue are federal in nature, not related to state or local governments or private entities. See Third Nat. Bank in Nashville v. Impac Limited, Inc., 432 U. S. 312, 322–323, (1977) (applying principle that “words grouped in a list should be given related meaning” where term “ ‘injunc tion’ ” was “sandwiched” between two other words in the statutory phrase “ ‘attachment, injunction, or execution’ ”).3

The Court draws additional support for its conclusion from reference to the provision’s “larger scheme,” ante, at 8—i.e., the sources enumerated in Categories 1 and 3.

Although the scope of Category 1 is not before us today (and although this Court has never addressed that ques tion), the Court believes that reading Category 2 as lim ited to Federal Government sources would be inconsistent with decisions of lower courts that have interpreted “criminal, civil, or administrative hearing[s]” in Category to include both state and federal proceedings. There is no conflict, however, if both categories are read, as re spondent and the Solicitor General urge, as exclusively federal. See Brief for Respondent 23–24; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 25–26. Even reading Category 1 more broadly, however, does not change the exclusively federal nature of “congressional” and “[GAO],” which undermines whatever inference might be drawn from taking the statutory terms in strict succession. Treating the entirety of §3730(e)(4)(A) as an undifferentiated list of items gives short shrift to the syntactical choices Congress made in offsetting each category with commas and prepo sitions, and in providing distinct classes of adjectives that modify different nouns.

Finally, the Court also views “news media” as “distinctly nonfederal in nature.” Ante, at 8–9. But “news media” does not seem particularly illuminating in this context. As the Court of Appeals observed, although media sources 6 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting may be national or local in scope, that distinction is not analogous to the difference between federal and state government sources. 528 F. 3d, at 304.

II In my view, the statutory context and legislative history are also less “opaque,” cf. ante, at 17, and more supportive of the reading adopted by the Court of Appeals, than the majority today acknowledges. While the legislative record is concededly incomplete, it does provide reason to exercise caution before giving the statutory text its broadest possi ble meaning—i.e., to encompass not only federal, but also state and local, government sources.

Three points are particularly salient. First, prior to the 1986 amendments, the “Government knowledge” bar unquestionably referred only to information in the posses sion of the Federal Government.4 Even still, the bar was criticized as overly restrictive. A Senate Report on an initial version of the 1986 legislation, for instance, de scribed the FCA’s history and need for legislative reform, noting “several restrictive court interpretations of the act . . . which tend to thwart the effectiveness of the statute.”

S. Rep. No. 99–345, p. 4 (1986) (hereinafter S. Rep.). For instance, courts had applied the Government knowledge bar “even if the Government makes no effort to investigate or take action after . . . original allegations [a]re received.”

Id., at 12 (citing United States ex rel. Lapin v. Interna tional Business Machines Corp., 490 F. Supp. 244 (Haw. 1980)).5

Second, there is more support than the Court recognizes for the proposition that Congress sought in the 1986 amendments to broaden the availability of qui tam relief.

The Senate Report characterized the reform effort as intended to “enhance the Government’s ability to recover losses sustained as a result of fraud against the Govern ment” and dwelt at length on the “severe” and “growing” problem of “fraud in Federal programs.” S. Rep., at 1–2; accord, H. R. Rep. No. 99–660, p. 18 (1986) (“Evidence of fraud in Government programs and procurement is on a steady rise”). The Senate Report also articulated a desire to “encourage any individual knowing of Government fraud to bring that information forward,” and it identified as “perhaps the most serious problem plaguing effective enforcement [of antifraud laws] a lack of resources on the part of Federal enforcement agencies.” S. Rep., at 2, 7.6 Consistent with these expressed views, the enacted legislation was replete with provisions encouraging qui 8 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting tam actions. By replacing the Government knowledge bar with the current text of §3730(e)(4)(A) and including an exception for “original source[s],” Congress “allowed pri vate parties to sue even based on information already in the Government’s possession.” Cook County v. United States ex rel. Chandler, 538 U. S. 119, 133 (2003). The 1986 amendments also established the right of qui tam relators to continue as a party to a suit after the Govern ment intervenes, 31 U. S. C. §3730(c)(1) (1988 ed.); in creased the percentage of recovery available as an incen tive for private suits, §3730(d)(1); and created a cause of action against employers who retaliate against qui tam relators, §3730(h).7

To be sure, Congress was also concerned in 1986, as in 1943, with guarding against purely opportunistic, “para sitic” qui tam relators. See S. Rep., at 10–11 (describing history of parasitic suits and the 1943 amendments); ante, at 12–13. Lower courts have viewed the 1986 amend ments as striking a balance between the “twin goals of rejecting suits which the government is capable of pursu ing itself, while promoting those which the government is not equipped to bring on its own.” United States ex rel.

Springfield Terminal R. Co. v. Quinn, 14 F. 3d 645, 651 (CADC 1994). But evidence that Congress sought to balance two competing goals supports moderation in interpreting an arguably ambiguous statutory text, rather than woodenly reading the statutory language to its fullest possible extent.

Third, the legislative record “ ‘contains no hint of any intention’ ” to bar suits based on disclosures from state or local government sources. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 20 (quoting United States ex rel. Anti- Discrimination Center of Metro N. Y., Inc. v. Westchester Cty., 495 F. Supp. 2d 375, 383 (SDNY 2007)). Inclusion of state or local government sources would have constituted a significant departure from the Federal Government knowledge bar that had existed for four decades by 1986.

But neither the initial bills reported by the Senate and House Committees nor statements by individual Members of Congress about subsequent versions of the legislation suggest any consideration or debate about expanding the pre-1986 bar to apply to state or local government 10 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting sources.8 Although these points do not definitively resolve the question presented today, to my mind they counsel against reading §3730(e)(4)(A) (2006 ed.) so broadly as to disturb the balance Congress evidently sought to achieve through the 1986 amendments. Today’s decision risks such a result. The Court imposes a jurisdictional bar that is by all appearances more restrictive of qui tam suits than the pre-1986 regime. Construing §3730(e)(4)(A) to encompass the thousands of state and local government administra tive reports produced each year effectively imputes to the Federal Government knowledge of such sources, whether or not the Government is aware of the information or in a position to act on it.9 The Solicitor General specifically warns that while information in federal administrative audits or investigations is “readily available” to attorneys at the Department of Justice, “many state and local re ports and investigations never come to the attention of federal authorities.” Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 22. The Court dismisses this concern as “sheer conjecture,” postulating that Government lawyers “may” in fact learn about “quite a few” state or local reports and investigations, particularly in joint state-federal pro grams.10 Ante, at 18. Perhaps so. But absent any con crete reason to believe otherwise, I would not so readily dismiss the formal representation of the Executive Branch entity with responsibility for, and practical experience in, litigating FCA claims on behalf of the United States.

In sum, the statute’s plain text, evidence of Congress’ intent to expand qui tam actions, and practical conse 12 GRAHAM COUNTY SOIL AND WATER CONSERVATION DIST. v. UNITED STATES EX REL. WILSON SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting quences of a more expansive interpretation together sug gest Category 2 is most reasonably read to encompass federal, but not state or local, government sources.11 * * * For the reasons given above, I would affirm the judg ment of the Court of Appeals, and respectfully dissent.