Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments in RICO, Immigration, and Clean Water Act Cases

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in four cases this week. The issues before the Court involved immigration, RICO suits, and giving veterans the benefit of the doubt.

The most closely watched case of the week was arguably City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency, which involves enforcement of the Clean Water Act (CWA), a frequent source of Supreme Court litigation. The issue before the justices this time around is whether the CWA allows the Environmental Protection Agency (or an authorized state) to impose generic prohibitions in National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits that subject permit-holders to enforcement for violating water quality standards without identifying specific limits to which their discharges must conform.

Below is a brief summary of the other cases before the Court:

Bouarfa v. Mayorkas: The case involves the power of courts to review certain visa decisions. The Immigration and Nationality Act bars judicial review of certain discretionary immigration decisions. Conversely, when a visa petition is denied based on a petitioner’s failure to satisfy a nondiscretionary requirement, it is generally understood that the petitioner has a right to judicial review of that decision. Once a visa petition has been approved, the government has the power to revoke approval of the visa petition for “good and sufficient cause” pursuant to 8 U.S.C. § 1155. The federal courts of appeal disagree over whether judicial review is available when the government revokes an approved petition on the ground that it had initially misapplied nondiscretionary criteria during the approval process. Thus, the question before the Court is “[w]hether a visa petitioner may obtain judicial review when an approved petition is revoked on the basis of nondiscretionary criteria.”

Medical Marijuana, Inc. v. Horn: The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act’s (RICO) civil action provision, 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c), creates a civil treble-damages action for “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of” certain offenses. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals held that while § 1964(c) implicitly excludes recovery for personal injuries, nothing in § 1964(c)’s text, or RICO’s structure or history, supports an “amorphous RICO standing rule” that bars plaintiffs from suing simply because their otherwise recoverable economic losses happen to have been connected to or flowed from a non-recoverable personal injury. The Court has agreed to consider the following question: “Whether economic harms resulting from personal injuries are injuries to ‘business or property by reason of’ the defendant’s acts for purposes of civil RICO.”

Bufkin v. McDonough: Veterans are generally entitled to the benefit of the doubt on any close issue relating to their eligibility for service-related benefits. Pursuant to 38 U.S.C. § 5107(b), “[w]hen there is an approximate balance of positive and negative evidence regarding any issue material to the determination of a matter, the Secretary [of Veterans Affairs] shall give the benefit of the doubt to the claimant.” In 2002, Congress enacted the Veterans Benefits Act. Among other things, the Act, 38 U.S.C. § 7261(b)(1), supplemented the responsibilities of the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims (the “Veterans Court”) by requiring it to “take due account of the Secretary’s application of section 5107(b)” as part of its review of benefits appeals. The specific issue before the justices is “[w]hether the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims must ensure that the benefit-of-the-doubt rule in 38 U.S.C. § 5107(b) was properly applied during the claims process in order to satisfy 38 U.S.C. § 7261(b)(1), which directs the court to ‘take due account’ of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ application of that rule.