Page:U.S. ex rel. Polansky v. Executive Health Resources.pdf/16

12 when it approves a post-seal-period intervention motion. See Brief for Polansky 23;. That clause, he says, prevents the court from giving the Government “primary responsibility” over the suit, including the power to dismiss. But on that reading, the Paragraph 3 clause would effectively negate Paragraphs 1 and 2. The Paragraph 3 clause would prevent the Government, even though now “proceed[ing]” with the case, from acquiring the control that Paragraphs 1 and 2 afford in that circumstance. Polansky’s construction would thus put the statute “at war with itself.” United States v. American Tobacco Co., 221 U. S. 106, 180 (1911). The statute would direct one result (the Government assuming the primary role upon intervening) while telling the court not to allow that state of affairs. The better reading makes the instruction to the court congruent with the background operation of the statute. The clause tells the court not to impose additional, extra-statutory limits on the relator when granting the Government’s post-seal-period motion to intervene. See ''United States ex rel. CIMZNHCA, LLC v. UCB, Inc.'', 970 F. 3d 835, 854 (CA7 2020) (explaining that the Paragraph 3 clause “instructs the district court not to limit the relator’s ‘status and rights’ as they are defined by” Paragraphs 1 and 2). In that way, Paragraph 3 ensures that the Government will get no special benefit from the court’s involvement in a later intervention: The parties will occupy the same positions as they would have if the Government had intervened in the seal period.

That seal-agnostic view of intervention’s effects also fits the FCA’s Government-centered purposes. In Polansky’s proposed world, the Government has primary control of the action if it intervenes in the seal period, but the relator has primary control if the intervention occurs later on. See Brief for Polansky 17. But in both cases, the Government’s interest in the suit is the same—and is the predominant one. That interest is typically to redress injuries against