768
Opinion of the Court
(1623), and statutes were passed deterring and penalizing vexatious informers, limiting the locations in which informer suits could be brought, and subjecting such suits to relatively short statutes of limitation, see Act to Redress Disorders in Common Informers, 18 Eliz. I, ch. 5 (1576); Act Concerning Informers, 31 Eliz. I, ch. 5 (1589); see generally Davies, supra, at 63-76. Nevertheless, laws allowing qui tam suits by informers continued to exist in England until 1951, when all of the remaining ones were repealed. See Note, The History and Development of Qui Tam, 1972 Wash. U. L. Q. 81, 88, and n. 44 (citing Common Informers Act, 14 & 15 Geo. VI, ch. 39 (1951)).
Qui tam actions appear to have been as prevalent in America as in England, at least in the period immediately before and after the framing of the Constitution. Although there is no evidence that the Colonies allowed common-law qui tam actions (which, as we have noted, were dying out in England by that time), they did pass several informer statutes expressly authorizing qui tam suits. See, e. g., Act for the Restraining and Punishing of Privateers and Pirates, 1st Assembly, 4th Sess. (N. Y. 1692), reprinted in 1 Colonial Laws of New York 279, 281 (1894) (allowing informers to sue for, and receive share of, fine imposed upon officers who neglect their duty to pursue privateers and pirates). Moreover, immediately after the framing, the First Congress enacted a considerable number of informer statutes.5 Like their English counterparts, some of them
5 In addition, the First Congress passed one statute allowing injured parties to sue for damages on both their own and the United States' behalf. See Act of May 31, 1790, ch. 15, § 2, 1 Stat. 124-125 (allowing author or proprietor to sue for and receive half of penalty for violation of copyright); cf. Act of Mar. 1, 1790, ch. 2, § 6, 1 Stat. 103 (allowing census taker to sue for and receive half of penalty for failure to cooperate in census); Act of July 5, 1790, ch. 25, § 1, 1 Stat. 129 (extending same to Rhode Island).
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