Defining Civil RICO's "Injury to Business or Property" Requirement: The Supreme Court Takes a Few Steps, Says It Punts, but Actually Fumbles

Authors

• Randy D. Gordon, Texas A&M University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-2026

Journal Title

Penn State Law Review

ISBN

0012-2459

Abstract

Throughout its history, the RICO statute has presented lawyers with something of an interpretive parlor game. It is indefinite along multiple dimensions and thereby given multiple interpretations, even down to the word level. In Medical Marijuana v. Horn, the Supreme Court set out to define one of RICO's civil-standing provisions: Namely, whether the statute's "injury to business or property" requirement can be satisfied when a plaintiff suffers both economic and personal injuries. In a 5-4 decision, members of the Court engaged in an interpretive battle over the meaning of the phrase and succeeded only in holding that civil RICO does not necessarily bar all claims for damages deriving from personal injuries. The Court can perhaps be forgiven for its skimpy holding, given that the record in the case was messy and contradictory (and was therefore not cert-worthy). But more troublesome is that everyone involved missed the point at which Horn, the plaintiff, suffered a possible RICO injury. For that and other reasons, the case is a muddle that will merely revive, rather than settle, disagreements in the lower courts.

First Page

671

Last Page

698

Num Pages

28

Volume Number

130

Issue Number

3

Publisher

Penn State Dickinson Law

Recommended Citation

Randy D. Gordon, Defining Civil RICO's "Injury to Business or Property" Requirement: The Supreme Court Takes a Few Steps, Says It Punts, but Actually Fumbles, 130 Penn State L. Rev. 671 (2026).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.tamu.edu/facscholar/2364

File Type

PDF