Victory at The United States Supreme Court

The firm won a landmark case in the United States Supreme Court on June 5, 2006, by a vote of 8 to 1. In a decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court ruled that our client could not be sued by a competitor under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) for allegedly injuring the competitor by defrauding the State of New York. The Supreme Court held that the competitor could not seek damages for any claimed lost business because the injury was too attenuated from the alleged fraud.

The competitor claimed that our client had been able to lower its prices by virtue of not paying New York State sales tax and thereby stole the competitor's customers. The Supreme Court ruled, however, that even if the alleged fraud on the State had occurred, it was not the "proximate cause" of the competitor's injury. Instead, the Court found that our client "could have lowered its prices for any number of reasons unconnected to the asserted pattern of fraud."

Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 126 S.Ct. 1991 (No. 04-433, June 5, 2006) available at here