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Opinion of the Court
punitive nature in arguing against municipal liability is not as robust as if it were a pure penalty in all cases. Treble damages certainly do not equate with classic punitive damages, which leave the jury with open-ended discretion over the amount and so raises two concerns specific to municipal defendants. One is that a local government's taxing power makes it an easy target for an unduly generous jury. See Newport, 453 U. S., at 270-271. But under the FCA, the jury is open to no such temptation; if it finds liability, its instruction is to return a verdict for actual damages, for which the court alone then determines any multiplier, just as the court alone sets any separate penalty. § 3729(a); see 277 F. 3d, at 978. There is mitigation, also, for the second worry, that "blameless or unknowing taxpayers" will be unfairly taxed for the wrongdoing of local officials. Newport, 453 U. S., at 267. This very case shows how FCA liability may expose only local taxpayers who have already enjoyed the indirect benefit of the fraud, to the extent that the federal money has already been passed along in lower taxes or expanded services. Cf. ibid. The question in such cases is whether the local taxpayer should make up for an un-deserved benefit, or the federal taxpayer be permanently out of pocket, a question that can be answered in any given case, not by an opportunistic qui tam relator, but by a combination of the judge's discretion and the Government's power to intervene and dismiss or settle an action, see § 3730(c)(2).
The presumption against punitive damages thus brings only limited vigor to the County's aid. Working against the County's position, however, is a different presumption, this one at full strength: the "cardinal rule . . . that repeals by implication are not favored." Posadas v. National City Bank, 296 U. S. 497, 503 (1936). Inferring repeal from legislative silence is hazardous at best, and error seems overwhelmingly likely in the notion that the 1986 amendments wordlessly redefined "person" to exclude municipalities. The County's argument, it must be remembered, is not
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