Decisions: Court rules on RICO claim, 3 other cases
UPDATE: 1:58 p.m.
The Supreme Court on Monday clarified the requirement under the anti-racketeering law (RICO) that there must be proof that business injury was caused by the claimed wrongdoing. It is not enough, the Court ruled, for one company to complain that a competitor’s tactics gave the rival a competitive advantage. For the RICO claim to go forward, the decision said, the suing company must show that there is “some direct relation between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct challenged.” The ruling came in Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp. (04-433).
The case involved competition in the sale of steel mill products to ornamental iron workers and small steel fabricators, as well as do-it-yourself homeowners. The companies involved were Ideal Steel Supply Copr. and National Steel Supply, Inc., competitors in the New York City area. Ideal contended that National failed to collect sales taxes on sales to cash-paying customers and failed to report those sales to New York taxing authorities, thus putting Ideal at a competitive disadvantage. Ideal said that the failure to collect the taxes and filing false returns amounted to mail and wire fraud, as underlying acts for a RICO violation. Ideal also contended that National used the money saved on the tax avoidance scheme to open a new location, causing Ideal to lose business. In its decision Monday, the Court ruled that Ideal could not show that the failure to collect taxes and filing false returns was the “proximate cause” of any business harm to Ideal. The direct victim of such a tax scheme, it said, was New York State, which could pursue its own remedies. The Court’s decision can be found here.
As a result of that decision, the Court, in another argued case, ordered the Eleventh Circuit to reconsider the case of Mohawk Industries v. Willliams (05-465). Last December, the Court had agreed to hear one issue raised in that case — that is, whether RICO applies to a corporation and agents that work for it on the theory they were part of a racketeering enterprise. At that time, the Court had refused to hear a second issue, on the same issue as in the Anza case on the necessary link between harmful conduct and injury under RICO. On Monday, it dismissed its grant of review on the definition of enterprise under RICO, and ordered the Eleventh Circuit to reconsider the case under Monday’s decision in the Anza case. That was done in a per curiam decision — unsigned but announced by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr.
In a second per curiam decision announced by the Chief Justice, the Court sent back to the Ninth Circuit a granted case on federal employees’ rights to sue over personnel actions, rather than pursue them through union grievance machinery. The case is Whitman v. U.S. Department of Transportation (04-1131). The remand will require the lower court to sort out jurisdictional questions under two federal statutes — the general federal question statute, and a special statute on jurisdiction over employment-related claims covered by collective bargaining procedures for federal workers.
In the fourth decision of the day Monday, the Court sought to sort out the remedies that courts are to impose for violations of the federal Speedy Trial Act. The decision covered issues of waiver of rights under the Act, and whether a judge’s failure to make findings on a delay in the proceedings was harmless error. The ruling came in the case of Zedner v. U.S. (05-5992). Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., wrote the main opinion. Justice Scalia wrote a concurrence objecting to Justice Alito’s use of legislative history.
The Court’s next likely date for opinions will be next Monday.
Re: Zedner, the Speedy Trial Act decision — Another (essentially) unanimous opinion for the criminal defendant by Justice Alito. Interesting that Justice Scalia undertook to lecture Alito at greater length and in greater detail than unusual for relying (as a makeweight) on legislative history.
Comment by Peter G — June 5, 2006 @ 12:30 pm
Re: Zedner, the Speedy Trial Act decision — Here we have another (essentially) unanimous opinion for the criminal defendant by Justice Alito; two in a row, I believe. I also find it interesting that Justice Scalia undertook to lecture SAA at greater length and in greater detail than unusual for relying (as a makeweight) on legislative history.
Comment by Peter G — June 5, 2006 @ 12:39 pm
Note that Justice Scalia went out of his way to denounce the use of floor debates, even though the majority opinion in this case refers only to committee reports.
Perhaps this is his windup, and the pitch is coming in Hamdan.
Comment by Kent Scheidegger — June 5, 2006 @ 12:42 pm
Are there opinions possible tomorrow, or is the next possible opinion date next Monday, if anyone knows?
Thanks.
Comment by tabman — June 5, 2006 @ 12:55 pm
I believe that the transcript for the reargument in Hudson v. Michigan, 04-1360, is supposed to be available online (reargument date was May 18, 2006). However, when I click on the link on http://www.supremecourtus.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcripts.html, what I get is the original argument transcript which was dated January 9, 2006). Can anyone help with this?
Comment by egroeg — June 5, 2006 @ 1:03 pm
An instant Scalia classic in Zedner. I think it’s a little disappointing that Alito has chosen to dabble, even in a case where it’s mostly harmless, but it’s not quite unexpected: one notes that S.D. Warren Co. v. Maine Bd. of Environmental Protection earlier this term, only Scalia refused to join that part of the opinion discussing legislative history. Our Fearless Leader and Justices Thomas and Alito seemed perfectly comfortable with it. I had hoped that the arrival of the new Justices might turn the tide on this matter, and the tone (and extent) of Scalia’s concurrence in this case suggests he believes that battle might yet be won.
Unsettling stuff.
Comment by Simon — June 5, 2006 @ 1:03 pm
While I am a big fan of Scalia’s, and I agree with his skepticism re: legislative history, it’s hard to get worked up about Alito’s use of it here. (One of Scalia’s best lines comes from a case where he rips on using legislative history–”I decline to participate in this process.”)
One of the oldest rules of statutory construction is the “what harm did the legislature wish to fix?” question. The legislative history provides some clues, and judges can therefore, albeit exceedingly carefully, use the history as evidence of what the statute was trying to accomplish, which could resolve an ambiguity.
Comment by federalist — June 5, 2006 @ 1:29 pm
The Scalia concurrence is surprising, as he has often made a similar point in a one-sentence concurrence. Although Justices Roberts and Alito are new to the Court, they could hardly have been unaware of Scalia’s well known view on the matter.
“I had hoped that the arrival of the new Justices might turn the tide on this matter, and the tone (and extent) of Scalia’s concurrence in this case suggests he believes that battle might yet be won.”
Unlikely, given the slow pace of change at the Court. Only three of the current Justices are older than Scalia, so a majority of them will probably still be there after he’s long gone. Scalia’s orthodoxy on this issue simply isn’t yet widely shared, and perhaps it will never be.
I do agree that this concurrence could represent frustration with opinions that are yet to appear, and which are headed in directions he disapproves of. But in writing as he did, I suspect he is addressing a broader public, and not his current colleagues, who have already made up their minds about when legislative history is relevant to judicial decision-making.
Comment by Marc Shepherd — June 5, 2006 @ 2:11 pm
Correction: only two of Scalia’s colleagues are older than he is (although Kennedy is younger by only a few months).
Comment by Marc Shepherd — June 5, 2006 @ 2:13 pm
Marc-
Sadly, I agree that it is all starting to look more like Caporetto than Omaha Beach.
Federalist-
Without meaning to provoke a by-now exceedingly well-rehearsed argument about the value of legislative history, I would point out that the legislative history is not the statute, and no two legislators need share common purpose (or, for that matter, any purpose at all) in order to pass the law. Even if I thought legislative intent were conclusive as to the meaning of a law, I would not be of the opinion that legislative history is a good bellweather of that that intent was. In my view, it is never appropriate to look to the legislative history in construing the meaning of a law, and just as excessive deference to Congressional authority encourages Congress to reach further and further beyond its bailiwick, so for courts to look to legislative history only encourages Congress to write sloppier and sloppier legislation. For reasons formalist, normative and practical, it should never be cited.
Comment by Simon — June 5, 2006 @ 3:24 pm