SCOTUS allows truck driver’s RICO suit against maker of cannabidiol product

Listen to this article

A truck driver who alleged he lost his job when he failed a drug test due to taking a THC-laced cannabidiol product to relieve accident-related pain can pursue a civil RICO suit against the manufacturer as there is no “antecedent-personal-injury bar” under 18 U.S.C. §1964(c) precluding recovery for business or property losses derived from a personal injury, a divided U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in affirming a decision from the 2nd Circuit. Click here to read the full text of Medical Marijuana v. Horn.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: 18 U.S.C. §1964(c) creates a cause of action for “[a]ny person injured in his business or property” by reason of a criminal RICO violation.]

BULLET POINTS:

“[C]ivil RICO has undeniably evolved ‘into something quite different from the original conception of its enactors.’ More suits are brought against ordinary businesses than against ‘archetypal, intimidating mobster[s],’ and given this development, Medical Marijuana is not the first litigant to express concern about ‘the “over-federalization” of traditional state-law claims.’ But we respond today as we have before: If the breadth of the statute ‘leads to the undue proliferation of RICO suits, the “correction must lie with Congress.”’

“The phrase ‘injured in his business or property’ does not preclude recovery for all economic harms that result from personal injuries.”

— Justice Amy Coney Barrett, majority opinion

“[T]his case has proved ill-suited for deciding the question presented. The parties dispute an important threshold issue: whether the plaintiff here suffered a personal injury in the first place. And, they have inadequately briefed their views on the meaning of the key statutory phrase ‘injured in his business or property.’ Perhaps due to these difficulties, the Court today issues a narrow opinion that elides the parties’ primary disputes. Rather than opine on ancillary issues, I would dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted.”

— Justice Clarence Thomas, dissenting

“[The fundamental question here is whether business or property losses from a personal injury transform a traditional personal-injury suit into a business-injury or property-injury suit that can be brought in federal court for treble damages under RICO. Plaintiff [Douglas] Horn and the Second Circuit say that the answer is yes. Defendant Medical Marijuana, as well as the Sixth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits, contend that the answer is no — that RICO does not authorize suits for personal injuries regardless of what losses or damages a victim sustains from a personal injury. I agree with defendant Medical Marijuana and the Sixth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits.

“A plaintiff cannot circumvent RICO’s categorical exclusion of personal-injury suits simply by alleging that a personal injury resulted in losses of business or property, thereby converting otherwise excluded personal-injury suits into business- or property-injury suits. If the rule were otherwise, as plaintiff Horn advocates here, RICO would federalize many traditional personal-injury tort suits. When enacting civil RICO in 1970, Congress did not purport to usher in such a massive change to the American tort system.”

— Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh,  joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., dissenting