My organization, Judicial Watch, has filed a petition
with the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations Act (RICO) lawsuit filed by Canyon County, Idaho,
against four large employers of illegal aliens (Canyon County v. Syngenta Seeds, Inc., et al.). Canyon County alleges
that during their employment, some of these illegal aliens committed crimes,
thereby costing the county millions of dollars for criminal justice services as
well as health and welfare services.
The district court and the 9th
Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Canyon County’s
lawsuit, prompting Judicial Watch’s Supreme Court petition. Judicial
Watch filed the petition for Canyon County with
co-counsel Howard W. Foster, a renowned RICO expert with the Chicago law
firm, Johnson & Bell, LTD.
For those of you unfamiliar with
RICO, it is a federal law passed in 1970 that was originally used to destroy
organized crime in America,
specifically the Mafia. Since that time, however, the use of RICO has
expanded to include a variety of circumstances. In fact,
in 1996, Congress amended RICO to include certain immigration offenses.
With respect to this specific lawsuit, there are two
central questions that arise from the appellate court ruling. First,
does the term “business or property” as described in the RICO statute
apply to the cost of services provided by a government entity or just to
commercial activity? And, secondly, can a court simply dismiss a lawsuit
based on a lack of injury directly resulting from the RICO activity, without
first determining if any direct injury had been caused?
With respect to the first question
– the application of the term “business or property” to
government services -- the lower courts have been split. This is one
reason why Judicial Watch believes the Supreme Court should settle the issue.
According to Judicial Watch’s petition: The 9th Circuit
Court’s conclusion “that a government entity
cannot sue to recover damages unless it is acting as ‘an ordinary
marketplace actor” under RICO, conflicts with the Seventh and Eighth
Circuits’ conclusions, which have rejected the need for any such
marketplace or commercial injury.” We also reminded the Supreme
Court of its explicit instruction to lower courts in a previous ruling to
“not read limitations into RICO.”
With respect to the question of
“proximate cause” or “direct injury,” Judicial
Watch’s petition argues that the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals bypassed the important analysis as to whether or not a direct injury
resulted from the alleged RICO activity. As our petition states, “Every
other Circuit analyzes proximate causation by first determining if the
plaintiff’s alleged injury flows directly from the RICO violation, or is
derivative of an injury to another party.”
RICO is a tool that can be used to
fight illegal immigration, and businesses that hire illegal aliens could
therefore be subject to RICO lawsuits. The lower courts in this case have
ignored the plain language of the RICO statute, but we hope the Supreme Court will
take this opportunity to affirm the rule of law.