766
Syllabus
ing a partial assignment of the Government's damages claim, the United States' injury in fact suffices to confer standing on Stevens. This conclusion is confirmed by the long tradition of qui tam actions in England and the American Colonies, which conclusively demonstrates that such actions were "cases and controversies of the sort traditionally amenable to, and resolved by, the judicial process." Steel Co. v. Citizens for Better Environment, 523 U. S. 83, 102. Pp. 771-778.
(b) The FCA does not subject a State (or state agency) to liability in a federal-court suit by a private individual on behalf of the United States. Such a State or agency is not a "person" subject to qui tam liability under § 3729(a). The Court's longstanding interpretive presumption that "person" does not include the sovereign applies to the text of § 3729(a). Although not a hard and fast rule of exclusion, the presumption may be disregarded only upon some affirmative showing of statutory intent to the contrary. As the historical context makes clear, various features of the FCA, both as originally enacted and as amended, far from providing the requisite affirmative indications that the term "person" included States for purposes of qui tam liability, indicate quite the contrary. This conclusion is buttressed by the ordinary rule of statutory construction that if Congress intends to alter the usual constitutional balance between States and the Federal Government, it must make its intention to do so unmistakably clear in the statute's language, and by the doctrine that statutes should be construed so as to avoid difficult constitutional questions. The Court expresses no view as to whether an action in federal court by a qui tam relator against a State would run afoul of the Eleventh Amendment, but notes that there is "a serious doubt" on that score. Ashwander v. TVA, 297 U. S. 288, 348. Pp. 778-787.
162 F. 3d 195, reversed.
Scalia, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Rehnquist, C. J., and O'Connor, Kennedy, Thomas, and Breyer, JJ., joined. Breyer, J., filed a concurring statement, post, p. 788. Ginsburg, J., filed an opinion concurring in the judgment, in which Breyer, J., joined, post, p. 788. Stevens, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Souter, J., joined, post, p. 789.
J. Wallace Malley, Jr., Deputy Attorney General of Vermont, argued the cause for petitioner. With him on the briefs were William H. Sorrell, Attorney General, Bridget C. Asay, Mark J. Di Stefano, and Wendy Morgan, Assistant
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