Page:U.S. ex rel. Schutte v. SuperValu.pdf/11

8 that their reported prices were their “usual and customary” prices?

It is equally important to recognize what we did not grant certiorari to review: We are not reviewing the meaning of the phrase “usual and customary” or whether any of respondents’ claims were, in fact, inaccurate or otherwise false. Nor are we reviewing whether respondents actually thought that the phrase “usual and customary” referred to their discounted prices. Nor, for that matter, are we reviewing any factual disputes about what respondents did or did not believe or do. These cases come to us from the grant of summary judgment to respondents on one discrete legal issue, and we granted certiorari to resolve only that issue.

Based on the FCA’s statutory text and its common-law roots, the answer to the question presented is straightforward: The FCA’s scienter element refers to respondents’ knowledge and subjective beliefs—not to what an objectively reasonable person may have known or believed. And, even though the phrase “usual and customary” may be ambiguous on its face, such facial ambiguity alone is not sufficient to preclude a finding that respondents knew their claims were false.

We start, as always, with the text of the FCA. See Universal Health Services, Inc. v. ''United States ex rel. Escobar'', 579 U. S. 176, 187 (2016). Here, the FCA defines the term “knowingly” as encompassing three mental states: First, that the person “has actual knowledge of the information,” §3729(b)(1)(A)(i). Second, that the person “acts in deliberate ignorance of the truth or falsity of the information,” §3729(b)(1)(A)(ii). And, third, that the person “acts in reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of the information,”