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Federal appeals court tosses RICO lawsuit against ComEd

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Illinois

A federal appellate court judge has dismissed a $150 million class action lawsuit against Illinois energy company ComEd and its parent company, Exelon, over a bribery scandal involving former House Speaker Michael Madigan. […]

ComEd admitted that it arranged jobs, subcontracted work, and monetary payments related to those jobs to Madigan in order “to influence and reward the official’s efforts to assist ComEd with respect to legislation concerning ComEd and its business,” prosecutors said. […]

The suit was dismissed in 2021, with a judge citing that the suit did not establish a firm link between bribery and the passage of the bills that allowed it to raise its rates. The plaintiffs appealed the decision, which was dismissed today.

* From the opinion…

Nine Illinois energy consumers sued their electricity provider, Commonwealth Edison Company, and its parent, Exelon Corporation, on behalf of themselves and those similarly situated for damages under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) alleging injury from increased electricity rates. These rates increased, the plaintiffs allege, because ComEd bribed the former Illinois Speaker of the House to shepherd three bills through the state’s legislature. The district court dismissed the suit. Because paying a state’s required filed utility rate is not a cognizable injury for a RICO damages claim, we affirm.

The plaintiffs acknowledge that the rates they paid to ComEd were filed with the ICC. And although that would seem to trigger the filed rate doctrine’s bar on judicial adjustments to filed utility rates, the plaintiffs seek monetary damages (and not declaratory or equitable relief) for “overpay[ment] for electricity” from ComEd under RICO. See 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c). In effect, they request a federal judgment retroactively adjusting the electricity rates they paid. To allow such a claim to proceed, we would need to hold that the filed rate doctrine has been displaced by RICO. We must therefore decide whether Congress, in passing the broadly applicable civil RICO statute, authorized federal courts to award damages in contravention of the filed rate doctrine. We hold that it did not. […]

If this suit were allowed to proceed, the plaintiffs could not rest on their allegations as they can here at the motion-to-dismiss stage; they would need to conduct discovery for facts supporting their contention that ComEd’s bribery of Madigan directly caused the three pieces of legislation to pass. See Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 547 U.S. 451, 459–60 (2006) (civil RICO damages claim requires “a direct causal connection” between the predicate offense and the alleged harm). That would necessarily involve probing the motives of individual state legislators who voted to enact the le islation to understand Madigan’s influence on them. Yet judicial tribunals rarely dive so deeply into the legislative process or into legislators’ motives. […]

At bottom, when the plaintiffs paid their electricity bills based on rates which had been properly filed with the ICC, they paid the state’s required legal rate. Based on our above analysis, we hold that the plaintiffs suffered no legally cognizable injury by paying this legal rate and thus were not “injured in [their] business or property,” as required to pursue a claim for damages under § 1964(c) of RICO.

posted by Rich Miller
Tuesday, Aug 23, 22 @ 10:38 am

Comments

the grifts, crimes, and deceit won’t stop if it doesn’t get punished

Comment by halving_fun Tuesday, Aug 23, 22 @ 10:43 am
===The suit was dismissed in 2021, with a judge citing that the suit did not establish a firm link between bribery and the passage of the bills that allowed it to raise its rates. The plaintiffs appealed the decision, which was dismissed today.===

The problem with a case like this, as I see it as a person who could only qualify as a juror, not a lawyer or judge…

1) Outlawing what could be real hard line parameters of lobbying includes companies not hiring those who understand the process best… and there’s fault in hiring folks with connections, which isn’t that what lobbying is… access?

2) Senate, Governor, committees, amendments, all those things are thrown out of “process” because “one way” clears the way for all these hurdles? Was the Senate in on it? The governor, and who exactly was governor, was he in on it too?

So, I can understand this ruling, as a layman or a “juror”…

Comment by Oswego Willy Tuesday, Aug 23, 22 @ 10:58 am
If a federal judge determined the RICO plaintiffs could never establish a firm link that ComEd giving stuff to Madigan pals directly caused ComEd-favorable legislation to pass, how do the feds prove this in the criminal cases? Or do they not need to prove this?

Comment by hisgirlfriday Tuesday, Aug 23, 22 @ 11:04 am
Attempting to do something criminal is a crime even if it’s unsuccessful.

Comment by Big Dipper Tuesday, Aug 23, 22 @ 11:20 am
Actual damages in this instance seem to be elusive, just like they were in the Commission’s ruling. ComEd kept the payrollers off the rate books, which ironically keep them out of liability but exposed them pretty harshly to criminality.

Comment by Stilted Tuesday, Aug 23, 22 @ 11:32 am
@hisgirlfriday

While both related to RICO claims, there are different issues at play.

The 7th circuit decision is based on the filed rate doctrine–basically, the rate filed with the ICC was the legal rate, and as such, there are no damages.

The lower court decision, which the 7th circuit more or less ignored outside of the concurring opinion, essentially found that the plaintiffs were arguing against 200+ years of Constitutional jurisprudence related to contract law.

Neither of the above has any effect on whether Madigan himself engaged in criminal activities under RICO.

Comment by Anon324 Tuesday, Aug 23, 22 @ 12:18 pm
If the lawsuit was successful, how much longer before Ameren customers (and maybe even CWLP) would have wanted to join the lawsuit? Even along the lines of “but Mike McClain is from Quincy, and they are served by Ameren.”

Comment by StateEmployeeThatIsNotInAFSCME Tuesday, Aug 23, 22 @ 12:37 pm