Medical Marijuana, Inc. v. Horn (604 U.S. 593, 2025)

PRELIMINARY PRINT Volume 604 U. S. Part 2 Pages 593–649 OFFICIAL REPORTS OF THE SUPREME COURT April 2, 2025 Page Proof Pending Publication REBECCA A. WOMELDORF reporter of decisions NOTICE: This preliminary print is subject to formal revision before the bound volume is published. Users are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors. OCTOBER TERM, 2024 593 Syllabus MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC., et al. v. HORN certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the second circuit No. 23–365. Argued October 15, 2024—Decided April 2, 2025 Seeking relief from his accident-related chronic pain, Douglas Horn pur- chased and began taking “Dixie X,” a purportedly THC-free, non- psychoactive CBD tincture produced by Medical Marijuana, Inc. A few weeks later, however, Horn's employer selected him for a random drug screening, and Horn tested positive for THC. After he refused to par- ticipate in a substance-abuse program, his employer fred him. Horn then sued Medical Marijuana under the Racketeer Infuenced and Cor- rupt Organizations Act (RICO), which creates a cause of action for “[a]ny person injured in his business or property” by reason of a crimi- nal RICO violation. 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c). The District Court granted summary judgment to Medical Marijuana. Horn's lost employment de- rived from a personal injury (ingesting THC), the court reasoned. And in the court's view, § 1964(c) forecloses recovery not only for personal Page Proof Pending Publication injuries, but also for business or property harms that result from such injuries. The Second Circuit reversed, concluding that Horn had been “injured in his business” when he lost his job. In so holding, the Second Circuit rejected the “antecedent-personal-injury bar,” a rule adopted by several circuits that precludes recovery for business or property losses that derive from a personal injury. Held: Under civil RICO, § 1964(c), a plaintiff may seek treble damages for business or property loss even if the loss resulted from a personal injury. Pp. 600–614. (a) The sole question before the Court is whether civil RICO categori- cally bars recovery for business or property losses that derive from a personal injury. The Court does not address issues implicated by this case but outside the scope of the question presented, i. e., whether Horn suffered a personal injury when he consumed THC, whether the term “business” encompasses all aspects of “employment,” and what “injured in his . . . property” means for purposes of § 1964(c). P. 600. (b) Section 1964(c) provides that “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of [RICO] may sue . . . .” The ordinary meaning of “injure” is to “cause harm or damage to” or to “hurt. ” American Heritage Dictionary 676. So the meaning of § 1964(c) is straightforward: A plaintiff has been “injured in his business or property” if his business or property has been harmed or damaged. 594 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Syllabus Even so, § 1964(c) does not allow recovery for all harms. By explicitly permitting recovery for harms to business and property, § 1964(c) implic- itly excludes recovery for harm to one's person. But the business or property requirement operates with respect to the kinds of harm for which the plaintiff can recover, not the cause of the harm for which he seeks relief. For example, a gas station owner beaten in a robbery cannot recover for his pain and suffering. But if injuries from the rob- bery force him to shut his doors, he can recover for the loss of his busi- ness. A plaintiff can seek damages for business or property loss, in other words, regardless of whether the loss resulted from a personal injury. Pp. 600–601. (c) Medical Marijuana argues that while “injury” ordinarily means harm, it can also refer to the “invasion of a legal right.” Ballentine's Law Dictionary 627. Seizing on the latter defnition, Medical Mari- juana asserts that “injured in his business or property” means “suffered an invasion of a business or property right”—i. e., a business or property tort. And Medical Marijuana contends that the invasion of a personal right never gives rise to a RICO claim. So if a personal-injury tort causes a business or property harm, the plaintiff “cannot recast” his harm “as the basis for a RICO suit.” Medical Marijuana in effect tries to make a term-of-art argument Page Proof Pending Publication without the term of art. True, “injury” can mean the “invasion of a legal right,” but even legal dictionaries confrm that “injury” often means “harm” or “damage.” In any event, when a word carries both an ordinary and specialized meaning, context determines the choice be- tween them. Here, context favors ordinary meaning. The statute uses “injured,” not “injury,” and the dictionary Medical Marijuana relies on defnes “injured” only according to its ordinary meaning. And Med- ical Marijuana's argument based on the presence of the word “damages” in § 1964(c) is untenable. The phrase “threefold the damages he sus- tains” refers to monetary redress—i. e., a plaintiff may recover triple the amount that makes him whole. Pp. 602–604. (d) Medical Marijuana ignores the many cases in which the Court has used the words “injury,” “harm,” and other terms connoting loss interchangeably. See, e. g., Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 497 (“[T]he compensable injury necessarily is the harm caused by predicate acts suffciently related to constitute a pattern”); Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 547 U. S. 451, 457; Hemi Group, LLC v. City of New York, 559 U. S. 1, 12. Medical Marijuana's tort-centric defnition of “injured” also stands in signifcant tension with the Court's holding in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin, 599 U. S. 533. In Yegiazaryan the Court addressed the circumstances in which injuries to property qualify as “domestic” and thus provide a basis for recovery under § 1964(c). Yegi- Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 595 Syllabus azaryan urged the Court to rely on common-law principles governing “ `the situs' ” of economic and property injuries. Id., at 546–547. After questioning whether such common-law principles were even “germane” to § 1964(c), the Court rejected their application and instead adopted a contextual inquiry. Id., at 547. In other words, the Court rejected an appeal to rely on the common law, deeming that approach inconsistent with “the thrust of § 1964(c).” Id., at 548. The Court reaches the same conclusion here. Pp. 604–606. (e) While Medical Marijuana insists that the Court's antitrust prece- dent settles the question, its reliance on antitrust law is misplaced. For one, antitrust law does not require plaintiffs to allege business or prop- erty injuries that track common-law torts. And for another, the Court has long recognized that the Clayton Act's and § 1964(c)'s injury require- ments are not “interchangeable.” RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 579 U. S. 325, 352. Pp. 606–608. (f) Medical Marijuana offers little guidance about how courts should assess whether a plaintiff has suffered a qualifying legal injury. In fact, the conclusions Medical Marijuana draws from its own hypotheticals rely on pure ipse dixit. It admits, for example, that draining a bank account using a computer password obtained by violence injures the account holder's property; it concedes that § 1964(c) allows recovery for Page Proof Pending Publication a ransom payment despite the antecedent kidnapping; and it insists that a human-traffcking victim can sue for her business or property harm despite it resulting from her captivity. But if an antecedent-personal- injury bar exists, it is unclear why any of these plaintiffs can recover for their losses. Defning “injured” by reference to legal rights also raises questions about defning the right at issue. Medical Marijuana's proposed solu- tion—that courts should consult the complaint, state law, and general tort principles—does not work. Taking those sources in order, the par- ties' disagreement over whether Horn pleaded a personal injury exposes the problems with looking to the plaintiff's complaint. Relying on state law would create choice-of-law questions. And looking to general tort law poses problems of its own. Not only does general tort law not al- ways clearly distinguish between “business,” “personal,” and “property” torts, but it also is diffcult to apply when there is no clear analogue or majority rule. Pp. 608–612. (g) Medical Marijuana warns that the Second Circuit's rule will evis- cerate RICO's “business or property” limitation, allowing plaintiffs to transform personal-injury claims into RICO suits for treble damages. But Medical Marijuana understates the other constraints on civil RICO claims. Even so, civil RICO has no doubt evolved “into something quite different from the original conception of its enactors,” Sedima, 596 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Opinion of the Court 473 U. S., at 500, and Medical Marijuana is not the frst to express con- cern about the over-federalization of state-law claims. As the Court has said before, if the statute allows the undue proliferation of RICO suits, the “correction must lie with Congress.” Id., at 499. Pp. 612–613. 80 F. 4th 130, affrmed and remanded. Barrett, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, and Jackson, JJ., joined. Jackson, J., fled a concur- ring opinion, post, p. 614. Thomas, J., fled a dissenting opinion, post, p. 614. Kavanaugh, J., fled a dissenting opinion, in which Roberts, C. J., and Alito, J., joined, post, p. 624. Lisa S. Blatt argued the cause for petitioners. With her on the briefs were Sarah M. Harris, Aaron Z. Roper, Kris- ten A. DeWilde, Roy A. Mura, Scott D. Mancuso, Richard E. Lerner, and Hanoch Sheps. Easha Anand argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were Jeffrey Benjamin and Pamela S. Karlan.* Justice Barrett delivered the opinion of the Court. Page Proof Pending Publication The Racketeer Infuenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) creates a cause of action for “[a]ny person injured in his business or property.” 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c). We must decide whether the statute, by implicitly denying a remedy for personal injuries, also denies a remedy for business and property loss that derives from a personal injury. It does not. *Briefs of amici curiae urging reversal were fled for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America et al. by Donald M. Falk, Gene C. Schaerr, and Jonathan D. Urick; for the DRI Center for Law and Public Policy et al. by Sarah Elizabeth Spencer and Lawrence S. Ebner; and for the Washington Legal Foundation by John M. Masslon II and Cory L. Andrews. Briefs of amici curiae urging affrmance were fled for the American Association for Justice by Robert S. Peck and Jeffrey R. White; and for the Human Traffcking Legal Center by Amit R. Vora. Briefs of amici curiae were fled for U. S. Hemp Roundtable, Inc., by James C. Martin, Kim M. Watterson, and Nolan M. Jackson; and for Thomas Fuller Ogden, pro se. Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 597 Opinion of the Court I A In 2012, Douglas Horn was working as a commercial truck driver when he crashed his truck and injured his back and shoulder. Months later, he was still suffering from chronic pain, and neither physical therapy nor traditional medicine provided relief. While searching for a natural alternative, Horn came across “Dixie X,” a tincture infused with cannabi- diol—more commonly known as CBD—sold by Medical Mari- juana, Inc.1 CBD, like its cannabis “cousin” tetrahydrocan- nabinol (THC), is a naturally occurring chemical compound found in the cannabis plant. Only THC, however, has the mind-altering properties associated with marijuana.2 Because a positive drug test could cost him his job, Horn was wary of any product that might contain THC. But Dixie X seemed safe. It was described as a “CBD-rich,” non-psychoactive medicine that is “0% THC.” App. 19. Page Proof Pending Publication Medical Marijuana's online FAQ page promised that Dixie X was “legal to consume both here in the U.S. and in many countries abroad.” Id., at 40. Additional research, includ- ing a call to a customer-service representative, reinforced those representations. Satisfed that Dixie X was THC- free, Horn bought a bottle and gave it a try. A few weeks later, Horn's employer selected him for a ran- dom drug screening. To his surprise, the test detected THC in his system. After Horn refused to complete a substance- abuse program—in his view, doing so would constitute “an admission to doing drugs,” id., at 91–92—his employer fred 1 Red Dice Holdings, LLC, is a joint venture of Medical Marijuana, Inc., and Dixie Holdings, LLC. All three petitioners—defendants in the courts below—played a role in producing and selling Dixie X. The details of their respective roles do not matter here, so we refer to them collectively as “Medical Marijuana.” 2 See Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Can- nabidiol (CBD)—Potential Harms, Side Effects, and Unknowns 1 (Feb. 2023). 598 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Opinion of the Court him. Horn then ordered another bottle of Dixie X and sent it to a third-party lab for testing. This test also came back positive for THC. In fact, the lab refused to mail the sample back to him, fearing that doing so would violate federal law. Horn sued Medical Marijuana in Federal District Court, raising a civil RICO claim (as well as a host of state-law claims not relevant here). See 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c). He alleged that Medical Marijuana was a RICO “ `enterprise' ” engaged in marketing, distributing, and selling Dixie X. § 1961(4); see United States v. Turkette, 452 U. S. 576, 583 (1981) (a RICO enterprise is “a group of persons associated together for a common purpose of engaging in a course of conduct”). He also asserted that Medical Marijuana's false or misleading advertising satisfed the elements of mail and wire fraud and that those crimes constituted a “ `pattern of racketeering activity.' ” §§ 1961(1), (5); see also §§ 1341, 1343. Page Proof Pending Publication The District Court granted summary judgment to Medical Marijuana on the RICO claim. According to the court, Horn's lost employment “fow[ed] from, and [was] derivative of, a personal injury he suffered”—the introduction of THC “into his system through the ingestion of Dixie X.” 2021 WL 4173195, *2, *5 (WDNY, Sept. 14, 2021). Yet RICO's civil cause of action, the court stressed, is available only to a “ `person injured in his business or property.' ” Id., at *2 (emphasis added). Because a plaintiff cannot recover for a personal injury, it reasoned, neither can he recover for a business or property harm that results from a personal in- jury. Id., at *5. So for Horn, § 1964(c) offered no path to relief. The Second Circuit reversed. 80 F. 4th 130 (2023). It began by analyzing an issue that neither the District Court nor the parties had addressed: whether the term “business” in § 1964(c) encompasses not only a “ `commercial or indus- trial establishment or enterprise,' ” but also an individual's Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 599 Opinion of the Court “ `employment.' ” Id., at 135–136. Adopting the broad defnition, the Second Circuit concluded that Horn had been “ `injured in his business' ” when he lost his job. Ibid. It then turned to the District Court's holding that a plain- tiff like Horn cannot recover for a business or property harm that fows from an “antecedent personal injury.” Id., at 137. Horn insisted that any personal-injury bar was inapplicable because the court had mischaracterized his “unwitting inges- tion of THC” as a “personal injury” from which his lost em- ployment derived. Id., at 135, n. 2. But the Second Circuit put this issue aside, instead holding that § 1964(c) does not impose an “antecedent-personal-injury bar.” Id., at 137. It acknowledged that by granting recovery to someone “in- jured in his business or property,” § 1964(c) “implicitly ex- cludes recovery for personal injuries.” Ibid. Even so, the court said, nothing in “RICO's text or structure” justifes reading this “negative implication” to exclude recovery for Page Proof Pending Publication all business and property injuries that happen to derive from a personal injury. Id., at 138. Rather, Congress “expressly authorized” a plaintiff to sue for injuries to his business or property. Id., at 140. And “business and property are no less injured simply because” the plaintiff also suffered “an antecedent personal injury.” Id., at 140–141. By rejecting an antecedent-personal-injury bar, the Sec- ond Circuit deepened a split among the circuits. The Sixth, Seventh, and Eleventh Circuits have each interpreted § 1964(c) to preclude relief for any economic loss (including loss to business or property) that results from a personal injury. See Jackson v. Sedgwick Claims Mgmt. Servs., Inc., 731 F. 3d 556, 565 (CA6 2013) (en banc); Doe v. Roe, 958 F. 2d 763, 770 (CA7 1992); Grogan v. Platt, 835 F. 2d 844, 847 (CA11 1988). The Second Circuit has joined the Ninth Cir- cuit in refusing to distinguish between a business or prop- erty loss suffered as an immediate consequence of a RICO violation and one “derived from” or “a secondary effect of ” 600 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Opinion of the Court a personal injury. Diaz v. Gates, 420 F. 3d 897, 901 (2005) (en banc). We granted certiorari to resolve the split. 601 U. S. 1166 (2024). B Because this case implicates several issues that fall outside the scope of the question presented, we begin by emphasiz- ing what we do not decide. First, we express no view on whether Horn suffered an antecedent personal injury when he consumed THC. In the courts below, Horn characterized his injury as exclusively to his business and property because the defendants hurt his livelihood, not his body. Whatever the merits of this theory, the Second Circuit did not address it, and neither party asks us to revisit the District Court's conclusion that Horn suf- fered a personal injury. So like the Second Circuit, we pro- ceed on the understanding that he did. Second, we do not decide whether the Second Circuit cor- Page Proof Pending Publication rectly interpreted “business” to encompass “employment” for purposes of § 1964(c). This interpretation may or may not be right. But because Medical Marijuana has not chal- lenged it, we leave the issue for another day. Finally, we do not opine on what it means for a plaintiff to be “injured in his . . . property” under § 1964(c). The parties suggest that this phrase covers all pecuniary loss. We need not engage this argument, however, because Horn's claim does not depend on it. After concluding that Horn was “in- jured in business,” the Second Circuit expressly reserved the question “whether Horn suffered an injury to property when he lost his job.” 80 F. 4th, at 136, n. 3. We follow suit. The only question we address is the one squarely before us: whether civil RICO bars recovery for all business or property harms that derive from a personal injury. II A Section 1964(c) provides that “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of [RICO] may Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 601 Opinion of the Court sue. . . .” (Emphasis added.) The ordinary meaning of “in- jure” is to “cause harm or damage to” or to “hurt.” Ameri- can Heritage Dictionary 676 (1969); Webster's Third New In- ternational Dictionary 1164 (1971) (“to impair the soundness of ”; “to infict material damage or loss on”); Ballentine's Law Dictionary 626 (3d ed. 1969) (“[t]o harm; to hurt; to wound”). “Injury,” which shares a common root, ordinarily refers to “[d]amage of or to a person, property, reputation, or thing.” American Heritage Dictionary, at 676; see also Webster's Third New International Dictionary, at 1164.3 The meaning of the relevant phrase is therefore straightforward: A plain- tiff has been “injured in his business or property” if his busi- ness or property has been harmed or damaged. Section 1964(c) requires nothing more. Even so, § 1964(c) does not allow recovery for all harms. Instead, by explicitly permitting recovery for harms to busi- ness and property, it implicitly excludes recovery for harm to one's person. See RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Com- Page Proof Pending Publication munity, 579 U. S. 325, 350 (2016); see also A. Scalia & B. Garner, Reading Law § 10, p. 107 (2012) (“[S]pecifcation of the one implies exclusion of the other”). But the “business or property” requirement operates with respect to the kinds of harm for which the plaintiff can recover, not the cause of the harm for which he seeks relief. For example, if the owner of a gas station is beaten in a robbery, he cannot re- cover for his pain and suffering. But if his injuries force him to shut his doors, he can recover for the loss of his busi- ness. In short, a plaintiff can seek damages for business or property loss regardless of whether the loss resulted from a personal injury. 3 Section 1964(c), which was enacted in 1970, see 84 Stat. 944, was mod- eled on a materially identical provision in the Clayton Act, which was enacted in 1914, see 38 Stat. 731. Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley- Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U. S. 143, 150 (1987). “Injure” had the same meaning then. See Webster's New International Dictionary 1111 (1913) (defning “injure” as “[t]o do harm to; to hurt; damage; impair” and “in- jury” as “[d]amage or hurt done to or suffered by a person or thing”). 602 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Opinion of the Court B Medical Marijuana resists this conclusion, contending that “injured in his business or property” carries a specialized meaning. While “injury” ordinarily means harm, it can also refer to the “invasion of a legal right.” Ballentine's Law Dictionary, at 627; see also Restatement (Second) of Torts § 7(1) (1964). Seizing on the latter defnition, Medical Mari- juana, echoed by the principal dissent, argues that “injured in his business or property” means “suffered an invasion of a business or property right”—that is, a business or property tort.4 The invasion of a personal right, they assert, never gives rise to a cause of action under RICO. See Brief for Petitioners 11, 15, 35; post, at 631 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). So if a personal-injury tort causes a business or prop- erty harm, the plaintiff “cannot recast” his harm “as the basis for a RICO suit.” Brief for Petitioners 15. It is true that “injury” can mean “invasion of a legal Page Proof Pending Publication right.” But even in the language of lawyers, this specialized defnition is not exclusive. Ballentine's, for example, defnes the full phrase “injury in his property” to mean either “[a]n injury to his property” or “[h]arm or damage resulting to his property directly or indirectly.” Ballentine's Law Diction- ary, at 627. And Black's defnes “injury” to mean “[a]ny wrong or damage done to another, either in his person, rights, reputation, or property.” Black's Law Dictionary 4 Neither Medical Marijuana nor the principal dissent explains why the common law of torts supplies the entire universe of relevant rights. After all, § 1964(c) also confers a legal right: a protection against business or property harms that result from racketeering activity. Accordingly, if a defendant's racketeering activity causes such a harm, the defendant has “inva[ded]” the plaintiff's “legally protected interest”—in other words, has injured the plaintiff, according to Medical Marijuana and the principal dis- sent's own defnition. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 7(1); see post, at 625, 628 (Kavanaugh, J., dissenting). Under their view, then, a civil RICO plaintiff must establish not just one but two injuries: frst, a viola- tion of the statutory right established by § 1964(c), and second, a violation of a right recognized by the common law of torts. Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 603 Opinion of the Court 924 (rev. 4th ed. 1968) (emphasis added). So in legal diction- aries, as in lay ones, “injury” often means “harm” or “damage.” When a word carries both an ordinary and specialized meaning, we look to context to choose between them. United States v. Hansen, 599 U. S. 762, 775 (2023). Here, context cuts decisively in favor of ordinary meaning. As an initial matter, the statute uses the word “injured” rather than “injury.” The word choice is notable, because while the legal dictionary on which Medical Marijuana primarily relies includes the specialized meaning (“invasion of a legal right”) in the possible defnitions of “injury,” it defnes “in- jured” only according to its ordinary meaning: “[h]urt, dam- aged, [or] wounded.” Ballentine's Law Dictionary, at 627. It is hard to make a term-of-art argument without the term of art. And although Medical Marijuana argues otherwise, the Page Proof Pending Publication presence of the word “damages” does not suggest that “in- jured” conveys a specialized meaning. Recall that § 1964(c) allows “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of ” a RICO violation to “recover threefold the dam- ages he sustains.” (Emphasis added.) Medical Marijuana insists that the defnitions of “injured” and “damages” must be different, because “Congress' use of `certain language in one part of the statute and different language in another' can indicate that `different meanings were intended.' ” Sebelius v. Auburn Regional Medical Center, 568 U. S. 145, 156 (2013) (quoting Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 U. S. 692, 711, n. 9 (2004)). According to Medical Marijuana, “damage[s]” refers to the “loss, hurt or harm” resulting from the RICO viola- tion. Ballentine's Law Dictionary, at 303. So “injured” must mean something else—namely, “having suffered an in- vasion of a legal right.” See Brief for Petitioners 15. Once again, Medical Marijuana edits the statute to make its point. Much as it treats “injured” as interchangeable with “injury,” it treats “damages” as interchangeable with 604 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Opinion of the Court “damage.” Yet the distinction matters, because “damages” has a specialized legal meaning referring to monetary re- dress. See Ballentine's Law Dictionary, at 303; American Stevedores, Inc. v. Porello, 330 U. S. 446, 450, n. 6 (1947). Section 1964(c) is best read as using “damages” in precisely this way. By allowing a plaintiff to recover “threefold the damages he sustains,” the statute allows a plaintiff to re- cover triple the amount that makes him whole. § 1964(c). And if “damages” refers to “monetary redress,” it obviously means something different from “hurt or harmed.” Giving “injured” its ordinary meaning, therefore, is perfectly con- sistent with the meaningful-variation canon. Besides, Medi- cal Marijuana's preferred defnition of “damages” is untena- ble. Under it, the statute would allow a plaintiff to recover “threefold the loss, hurt, or harm he sustains.” That makes little sense. C Page Proof Pending 1 Publication Medical Marijuana admits that “depending on context, in- jury can mean harm” and that “injury, harm, and damages” can be used interchangeably. Reply Brief 8. Tellingly, it ignores the many cases treating the terms synonymously in this very context. Sedima holds that “the compensable injury necessarily is the harm caused by predicate acts suffciently related to con- stitute a pattern.” Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 497 (1985) (emphasis added). Tracking Sedima, Anza is replete with language about the plaintiff's harms. See, e.g., Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 547 U. S. 451, 457 (2006) (“Ideal's theory is that Joseph and Vincent Anza harmed it”); id., at 458 (“To be sure, Ideal asserts it suffered its own harms”); ibid. (“The cause of Ideal's asserted harms, however, is a set of actions . . . entirely distinct from the alleged RICO violation”). The same is true of Hemi Group, which reiterates that “in the RICO context, the focus is on Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 605 Opinion of the Court the directness of the relationship between the conduct and the harm.” Hemi Group, LLC v. City of New York, 559 U. S. 1, 12 (2010) (emphasis added). In case after case, we have used the words “injury,” “harm,” and other terms con- noting loss interchangeably. See, e. g., Bridge v. Phoenix Bond & Indemnity Co., 553 U. S. 639, 644, n. 3 (2008) (“For present purposes, it suffces that respondents allege they `suffered the loss of property related to the liens they would have been able to acquire' ”); 5 Klehr v. A. O. Smith Corp., 521 U. S. 179, 191 (1997) (“[T]heir injuries—the harm to their farm—have always been specifc and calculable”); Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corporation, 503 U. S. 258, 271 (1992) (equating “injuries” with “losses suffered”). Ac- cepting Medical Marijuana's argument would require an about-face. Vocabulary aside, if “injured” does not mean “harmed,” it is diffcult to understand our holding in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin. 599 U. S. 533 (2023). There, we addressed the cir- Page Proof Pending Publication cumstances in which injuries to property qualify as “domes- tic” and thus provide a basis for recovery under § 1964(c). Yegiazaryan urged us to rely on “common-law principles gov- erning `the situs' ” of economic and property injuries. Id., at 546–547. In his view, these principles established a “bright-line rule”: An injury is located at the plaintiff's domi- cile. Ibid. We rejected his argument, reasoning that he had not clearly explained why those principles were “ger- mane” to § 1964(c). Id., at 547. His view, we observed, “generate[d] results . . . far afeld from any reasonable inter- 5 The principal dissent thinks that Bridge supports its view, but the opposite is true. See post, at 642 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). In Bridge, we rejected an invitation to look to a common-law tort analogue to resolve whether the defendant's fraudulent conduct could form the basis of a civil RICO suit. 553 U. S., at 652. There was no reason to think, we ex- plained, that Congress had limited § 1964(c)'s reach to only “ `those acts [that] would have been actionable under the common law.' ” Ibid. In this case, however, Medical Marijuana and the principal dissent adopt precisely that logic. 606 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Opinion of the Court pretation of what qualifes as a domestic application of § 1964(c).” Id., at 548. We instead adopted a contextual, fact-intensive inquiry that accounts for “the nature of the alleged injury, the racketeering activity that directly caused it, and the injurious aims and effects of that activity.” Id., at 544 (footnote omitted). Medical Marijuana's argument stands in signifcant tension with Yegiazaryan. Carried to its logical conclusion, a tort- centric reading of § 1964(c) would require that courts refer to choice-of-law principles governing the “place of wrong” when locating the situs of a RICO injury. Restatement of Confict of Laws § 377 (1934). Those principles dictate look- ing to where “the last event necessary to make an actor lia- ble for an alleged tort takes place.” Ibid. So there would be no reason for a court to use a contextual approach, survey- ing the “injurious effects” of the defendant's conduct and pin- pointing where they “largely manifested.” Yegiazaryan, Page Proof Pending Publication 599 U. S., at 546. But this is the precise approach we out- lined in Yegiazaryan. And we rejected the petitioner's ap- peal to the common law, deeming it inconsistent with “the thrust of § 1964(c).” Id., at 548. We reach the same conclu- sion here. 2 Perhaps realizing that our civil RICO precedent is not on their side, Medical Marijuana and the principal dissent largely ignore it, insisting instead that our antitrust prece- dent settles the issue. See post, at 631–635 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). But their reliance on antitrust law is misplaced.6 Despite what the principal dissent says, antitrust law has not “long required plaintiffs to allege business or property 6 As the principal dissent itself observes: “Few antitrust violations are likely to infict personal injury” because “anticompetitive acts break laws, not legs.” Post, at 636 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). Well put—and all the more reason to wonder why antitrust law is particularly helpful here. Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 607 Opinion of the Court injuries” that track common-law torts.7 See post, at 629– 630, 634. In Radiant Burners, for example, we said that “to state a claim” under the Sherman and Clayton Acts, “al- legations adequate to show a violation and, in a private tre- ble damage action, that [the] plaintiff was damaged thereby are all the law requires.” Radiant Burners, Inc. v. Peoples Gas Light & Coke Co., 364 U. S. 656, 660 (1961) (per curiam) (emphasis added). And more recently, we observed that the “broad text” of the Clayton Act—“ `any person' who has been `injured' ”—“readily covers consumers who purchase goods or services at higher-than-competitive prices from an alleg- edly monopolistic retailer.” Apple Inc. v. Pepper, 587 U. S. 273, 279 (2019). In neither Radiant Burners nor Apple (nor any case in between) did we pause to ask whether “the plain- tiff's business or property rights” had been “legally violated” according to the common law of torts. Post, at 633 (Kava- naugh, J., dissenting).8 In fact, to the extent our modern antitrust precedent fore- Page Proof Pending Publication closes recovery for certain economic harms, it does so be- cause of a requirement that we have expressly declined to extend to civil RICO. Several decades ago, we interpreted 7 Tellingly, the principal dissent builds its antitrust argument on a single sentence from a century-old case about rate fxing, see Keogh v. Chicago & Northwestern R. Co., 260 U. S. 156, 162 (1922), and an unadorned citation to a District Court case, see Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U. S. 330, 339 (1979) (citing Hamman v. United States, 267 F. Supp. 420, 432 (Mont. 1967)). Post, at 632–633 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). And while the dis- sent claims that we have recognized the former as “ `settled law,' ” post, at 633, n. 1, the “settled” rule of Keogh is that “tariff-related claims” do “not give rise to treble-damages antitrust actions,” Square D Co. v. Niagara Frontier Tariff Bureau, Inc., 476 U. S. 409, 419–420 (1986). Horn's case, of course, has nothing to do with tariffs. 8 Consistent with these cases, the prominent Areeda and Hovenkamp treatise states that the Clayton Act's “ `business or property' requirement is virtually always satisfed provided there is some kind of injury that can properly be characterized as economic.” 2A P. Areeda, H. Hovenkamp, R. Blair, & C. Durrance, Antitrust Law: An Analysis of Antitrust Princi- ples and Their Application § 336 (5th ed. 2021). 608 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Opinion of the Court the Clayton Act to require a particular kind of injury— namely, an “injury of the type the antitrust laws were in- tended to prevent.” Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl- O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S. 477, 489 (1977); Atlantic Richfeld Co. v. USA Petroleum Co., 495 U. S. 328, 342 (1990) (This “re- quirement . . . ensures that the harm claimed by the plain- tiff corresponds to the rationale for fnding a violation of the antitrust laws in the frst place” (emphasis added)). In Sed- ima, however, we concluded that “transplant[ing]” this cause-of-action-specifc interpretation of “injured” into the RICO context “would be inappropriate.” RJR Nabisco, 579 U. S., at 352 (describing Sedima). Rejecting the Second Circuit's “[a]nalog[y] to the Clayton Act,” we held that a civil RICO plaintiff need not allege a “ `racketeering' ” or “ `RICO- type injury' ”; all that is required is business or property “harm” resulting from the defendant's “predicate acts.” Sedima, 473 U. S., at 484–485, 495. “There is no room in Page Proof Pending Publication the statutory language” we explained, “for an additional, amorphous `racketeering injury' requirement.” Id., at 495; see also Holmes, 503 U. S., at 269, n. 15 (“ `[A]ntitrust injury' has no analogue in the RICO setting”). In short, we recog- nized then and reiterate today that the Clayton Act and § 1964(c) are not “interchangeable.” RJR Nabisco, 579 U. S., at 352. D You can't replace something with nothing. And aside from its repeated assertions that “injury” means “invasion of a legal right,” Medical Marijuana offers next to nothing about how courts should assess whether the plaintiff has suf- fered such an invasion. The proof lies in Medical Marijuana's own hypotheticals. Unable to identify a guiding principle, it lets pure intuition do the work. It asserts that if a mobster assaults a carwash owner and the owner does “business with the mob” as a re- sult, the owner has suffered a “business or property injury.” Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 609 Opinion of the Court Brief for Petitioners 34. But why? The business or prop- erty loss fowed from an assault on the carwash owner. Ac- cording to Medical Marijuana, the example works because “[f]orcing someone to do business with the mob instead of a cheaper, legitimate competitor is a prototypical business or property injury.” Ibid. It offers nothing, however, to sup- port this ipse dixit. What makes choosing a more expen- sive business partner a “prototypical” business injury? And why does this rationale not extend to losing your job, as Horn did after consuming Dixie X? Medical Marijuana does not say. 9 Its other examples continue in the same vein. It admits that “if Tony Soprano drains a bank account using a com- puter password obtained by violence, Mr. Soprano has in- jured the account holder's property by taking his money.” Id., at 34–35 (citation omitted). It concedes that § 1964(c) allows recovery for a ransom payment, even if a kidnap- Page Proof Pending Publication ping—a personal harm—was the catalyst. Id., at 34. And it insists that a human-traffcking victim can sue for her busi- ness or property harm, even though the harm necessarily resulted from her captivity. Reply Brief 8. But if an antecedent-personal-injury bar exists, it is unclear why any of these plaintiffs can recover for their business or property losses. In each scenario, the economic harm resulted from a personal injury. As Medical Marijuana's own hypotheticals reveal, defning “injured” by reference to legal rights raises diffcult ques- tions about how to defne the right at issue. And Medical 9 The principal dissent has the same problem. It asserts that “negli- gently driving a car into a pedestrian” inficts a personal injury that it calls “wrongful invasion of the pedestrian's physical safety.” Post, at 631 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). But not even a cover-to-cover reading of the Restatement will reveal a “wrongful invasion of physical safety” tort. (And wisely, the dissent does not rest on the general tort of negligence, which is not susceptible to fxed categorization as a business, property, or personal tort.) 610 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Opinion of the Court Marijuana's proposed solution is illusory.10 Its reply brief simply asserts that “plaintiffs are the masters of their com- plaints and what legal rights they assert.” Id., at 4. But how should a court determine whether the plaintiff has as- serted a qualifying “legal right?” When asked this question at oral argument, Medical Marijuana suggested that courts could consult three sources: the complaint, state law, and general tort principles. Tr. of Oral Arg. 35. Yet this list gives rise to a host of new questions. Must a court examine all three sources? In what order? What should it be look- ing for? And what if the sources confict? Start with the complaint in this very case. The parties vigorously dispute whether Horn pleaded a personal injury. Medical Marijuana says yes, Horn says no, and the Second Circuit declined to address the question. See 80 F. 4th, at 135, n. 2. We express no view on which party is right, but their disagreement exposes the gaps in Medical Marijuana's theory. Do the plaintiff's asserted causes of action govern? Page Proof Pending Publication Or must a court try to match the alleged facts with a particu- lar business or property tort? And what if no particular tort squarely governs the facts of the case? As Horn notes, “harboring” undocumented immigrants and “ `traffcking in counterfeit labels for phonorecords' ” are just two of many RICO predicate offenses that lack obvious tort-law ana- logues. See Brief for Respondent 26; see also 18 U. S. C. § 1961(1); 8 U. S. C. § 1324 (harboring); 18 U. S. C. § 2318 (traffcking). Next, consider state law. In its briefng, Medical Mari- juana posits that “[i]ngesting an unwanted product” is “plainly a personal injury,” citing two state-court opinions as primary support. Brief for Petitioners 21 (citing Common- 10 As is the principal dissent's. It offers the half-hearted reassurance that ascertaining “whether a plaintiff [has] plausibly allege[d] a business or property injury as distinct from a personal injury . . . is at least a familiar judicial exercise.” Post, at 643 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). Suf- fce it to say, we have our doubts. Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 611 Opinion of the Court wealth v. Stratton, 114 Mass. 303, 304–305 (1873); Gupta v. Asha Enterprises, L.L.C., 422 N. J. Super. 136, 142, 153–154, 27 A. 3d 953, 956, 963 (App. Div. 2011)). But if state law controls, other questions arise. States need not defne their torts using the specifc categories of “business,” “person,” and “property.” Nor do all torts obviously fall into a partic- ular category. Some States, for example, have recently rec- ognized a tort action against medical providers who disclose “information obtained during treatment.” See Lawson v. Halpern-Reiss, 2019 VT 38, ¶14, 210 Vt. 224, 233, 212 A. 3d 1213, 1219; Byrne v. Avery Center for Obstetrics & Gynecol- ogy, P.C., 327 Conn. 540, 564–568, 175 A. 3d 1, 15–17 (2018). Does disclosure implicate a privacy interest? If so, does vi- olating that interest constitute a “personal injury”? Or does disclosure implicate a property interest in one's medical information? Relying on state law would also create choice-of-law ques- Page Proof Pending Publication tions. Many RICO enterprises transcend the boundaries of a single jurisdiction. See 18 U. S. C. § 1965(a) (establishing venue in “any district” in which the defendant “resides, is found, has an agent, or transacts his affairs”); see also Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Associates, Inc., 483 U. S. 143, 154 (1987) (“[P]redicate acts will often occur in several States”). Which jurisdiction must supply the neces- sary tort-law analogue? Is it where the plaintiff felt her injury? Where the defendant engaged in the racketeering activity? Where the majority of the enterprise resides? The third source on Medical Marijuana's list—general tort law—avoids the choice-of-law concern but has theoretical problems of its own. For one, like state tort law, general tort law does not always clearly distinguish between “busi- ness,” “personal,” and “property” torts. For another, gen- eral tort law is neither static nor uniform. See Air & Liq- uid Systems Corp. v. DeVries, 586 U. S. 446, 453 (2019) (observing that “the federal and state courts ha[d] not reached consensus on how to apply” a particular principle of 612 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Opinion of the Court general tort law). When a majority rule does not exist, when the law is unsettled, or when there is no analogous tort, deferring to general tort principles is diffcult, to say the least. * * * Medical Marijuana tries valiantly to engineer a rule that yields its preferred outcomes. (Civil RICO should permit suit against Tony Soprano, but not against an ordinary tort- feasor.) But its textual hook—the word “injured”—does not give it enough to go on. When all is said and done, Medical Marijuana is left fghting the most natural interpretation of the text—that “injured” means “harmed”—with no plausible alternative in hand. That is a battle it cannot win. III Medical Marijuana, together with the principal dissent, warn that the Second Circuit's rule will eviscerate RICO's Page Proof Pending Publication “business or property” limitation. See post, at 635 (opinion of Kavanaugh, J.). In their view, a plaintiff can character- ize any economic harm fowing from a personal injury as a harm to his business or property. Hence, they say, plaintiffs can easily transform garden-variety personal-injury claims into RICO suits for treble damages. While we understand the concern, Medical Marijuana and the dissent understate other constraints on civil RICO claims. First and foremost is RICO's direct-relationship require- ment. Time and again, we have reiterated that § 1964(c)'s “by reason of ” language demands “some direct relation be- tween the injury asserted and the injurious conduct al- leged.” Holmes, 503 U. S., at 268. The key word is “di- rect”; foreseeability does not cut it. Hemi Group, 559 U. S., at 12. Rather, whenever the plaintiff's theory of causation requires moving “well beyond the frst step,” it “cannot meet RICO's direct relationship requirement.” Id., at 10. Given the number of steps in Horn's theory and the multi- ple actors involved, this requirement may present an insur- Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 613 Opinion of the Court mountable obstacle in his case. Indeed, even Horn concedes that he faces “a heavy burden on remand.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 45, 63, 70. There is, after all, some distance between the frst link in the chain (Medical Marijuana's misrepresenta- tions) and the last (Horn's job loss). Second, pleading a RICO claim is not as simple as pointing to a business or property harm. A plaintiff must frst estab- lish a pattern of racketeering activity. 18 U. S. C. §§ 1962, 1964(c). Doing so requires identifying two or more predi- cate crimes “within a single scheme that were related and that amounted to, or threatened the likelihood of, continued criminal activity.” H. J. Inc. v. Northwestern Bell Tele- phone Co., 492 U. S. 229, 237 (1989); see also §§ 1961(1) and (5), 1962. So harm resulting from a single tort is not a ticket to federal court for treble damages. Third, the reach of § 1964(c) turns on more than the mean- ing of “injured.” As we noted at the outset, “business” may Page Proof Pending Publication not encompass every aspect of employment, and “property” may not include every penny in the plaintiff's pocketbook. Accordingly, not every monetary harm—be it lost wages, medical expenses, or otherwise—necessarily implicates RICO. Medical Marijuana brushes away this possibility, in- stead attributing the broadest defnitions to both terms. All of this said, civil RICO has undeniably evolved “into something quite different from the original conception of its enactors.” Sedima, 473 U. S., at 500. More suits are brought against ordinary businesses than against “arche- typal, intimidating mobster[s],” id., at 499, and given this development, Medical Marijuana is not the frst litigant to express concern about “the `over-federalization' of tradi- tional state-law claims,” Bridge, 553 U. S., at 659. But we respond today as we have before: If the breadth of the stat- ute “leads to the undue proliferation of RICO suits, the `cor- rection must lie with Congress.' ” Id., at 660 (quoting Sedima, 473 U. S., at 499); see also H. J. Inc., 492 U. S., at 248– 249; Boyle v. United States, 556 U. S. 938, 950–951 (2009). 614 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Thomas, J., dissenting * * * The phrase “injured in his business or property” does not preclude recovery for all economic harms that result from personal injuries. We therefore affrm the Second Circuit's judgment and remand the case for further proceedings con- sistent with this opinion. It is so ordered. Justice Jackson, concurring. When Congress speaks, courts should listen. Congress has instructed that the Racketeer Infuenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) “shall be liberally construed to ef- fectuate its remedial purposes.” § 904(a), 84 Stat. 947. That instruction applies with particular force to the remedial provision of RICO at issue in this case, 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c), which creates “a private action for those injured by rack- eteering activity.” Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 Page Proof Pending Publication U. S. 479, 498 (1985). In rejecting petitioners' attempts to add atextual hurdles to § 1964(c), today's decision accords with Congress's liberal-construction directive. In my view, that provides one more reason that the decision is right. Justice Thomas, dissenting. The Racketeer Infuenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) allows any person “injured in his business or prop- erty by reason of ” racketeering activity to bring a civil suit for damages. 18 U. S. C. § 1964(c). All agree that this “civil RICO” statute forbids suits based on “personal injuries.” RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 579 U. S. 325, 348, 350 (2016). We granted certiorari in this case to resolve a Circuit split on “[w]hether economic harms resulting from personal injuries” are “injuries to `business or property' ” under civil RICO or are instead personal-injury damages. Pet. for Cert. i. But, this case has proved ill suited for de- ciding the question presented. The parties dispute an im- portant threshold issue: whether the plaintiff here suffered Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 615 Thomas, J., dissenting a personal injury in the frst place. And, they have inade- quately briefed their views on the meaning of the key statu- tory phrase “injured in his business or property.” § 1964(c). Perhaps due to these diffculties, the Court today issues a narrow opinion that elides the parties' primary disputes. Rather than opine on ancillary issues, I would dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted. I respectfully dissent. I Plaintiff Douglas Horn lost his job as a commercial truck driver after a random drug test revealed tetrahydrocannabi- nol (THC) in his system. Horn asserts that the THC came from his ingestion of Dixie X, an over-the-counter medicinal product manufactured and sold by Medical Marijuana, Inc.1 Medical Marijuana advertised Dixie X as THC-free, but a third-party laboratory detected THC in the product. Horn sued Medical Marijuana in Federal District Court, Page Proof Pending Publication alleging various state-law claims and a violation of civil RICO. To establish a civil RICO violation, a plaintiff must prove that a defendant engaged in a “pattern of racketeering activity” that caused the plaintiff to be “injured in his busi- ness or property.” §§ 1962, 1964(c). Horn alleged that Medical Marijuana engaged in mail and wire fraud—forms of racketeering activity under RICO—and that, as a result, he suffered a business or property injury in the form of lost employment. Medical Marijuana moved for summary judgment on some of Horn's state-law claims on the ground that Horn had not suffered a personal injury, an essential element of those claims. Specifcally, Medical Marijuana asserted that Horn had “failed to produce any evidence or testimony that [he] suffered any bodily injury from ingesting Dixie X.” Memo- 1 Petitioners include Medical Marijuana, Inc., Red Dice Holdings, LLC, and Dixie Holdings, LLC, all of which were involved in the production and sale of Dixie X. I refer to petitioners as Medical Marijuana throughout this opinion. 616 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Thomas, J., dissenting randum of Law in Support of Defendants et al. in No. 15–cv– 701 (WDNY, Aug. 30, 2018), ECF Doc. 62–1, p. 27. In Medi- cal Marijuana's view, “[t]he only loss” Horn even “attempted to establish through discovery” was that he lost his “jo[b] and . . . source of income.” Ibid. The District Court accepted Medical Marijuana's argu- ment and rejected some of Horn's state-law claims based on his failure to establish a personal injury. 383 F. Supp. 3d 114, 134 (WDNY 2019). The court explained that although Horn seeks damages for “economic losses,” he does “not claim that [he] suffered any personal injury . . . as a result of [Medical Marijuana's] conduct.” Ibid. The District Court's summary judgment ruling left two claims for trial: a state-law fraudulent inducement claim and the civil RICO claim. On the eve of trial, Medical Marijuana argued for the frst time that Horn's civil RICO claim failed as a matter of law Page Proof Pending Publication because it was based on a “personal injury.” Memorandum of Law in Reply to Motion In Limine in No. 15–cv–701 (WDNY, Aug. 2, 2021), ECF Doc. 200, p. 4. It asserted that the only injury Horn alleged was the unwanted “ingest[ion]” of “trace amounts of THC,” and that this kind of injury “is, fundamentally, a type of `personal injury.' ” Id., at 10, 12. Horn's lost wages, according to Medical Marijuana, were merely “damages” that “derive from a personal injury,” and thus “are not recoverable under . . . civil RICO.” Id., at 5 (capitalization and boldface deleted). Notwithstanding its earlier determination that Horn had not suffered a personal injury for purposes of the state-law claims, the District Court adopted Medical Marijuana's new theory and held that Horn's civil RICO claim was based on an impermissible “personal injury: the bodily invasion that [Horn] suffered when he unwittingly ingested THC.” 2021 WL 4173195, *3 (WDNY, Sept. 14, 2021). And, because civil RICO precludes suits based on personal injuries, the District Court determined that Horn's civil RICO claim “fail[ed] as a Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 617 Thomas, J., dissenting matter of law.” Id., at *5. The District Court granted par- tial fnal judgment on the civil RICO claim to allow Horn to appeal. Before the Second Circuit, Horn did not contest the Dis- trict Court's holding that civil RICO excludes suits based on economic harms resulting from personal injuries. Rather, he argued that he had not suffered a personal injury in the frst place. The Second Circuit declined to decide whether Horn had suffered a personal injury. Instead, the court resolved what it described as the “logically antecedent legal question”: whether civil RICO “bars a plaintiff from suing for injuries to business or property simply because they fow from, or are derivative of, a personal injury.” 80 F. 4th 130, 135, n. 2 (2023). Deepening a Circuit split, the Second Circuit held that civil RICO permits a plaintiff to sue for injuries to busi- ness or property that “fow from, or are derivative of, an Page Proof Pending Publication antecedent personal injury.” Id., at 135. Medical Marijuana petitioned this Court for certiorari, asking us to decide whether economic harms resulting from personal injuries are injuries to “business or property” under civil RICO. Pet. for Cert. i. It assured us that “[t]his case cleanly tees that circuit split up for resolution,” and that the case would “tur[n] on a narrow, dispositive, and discrete question of statutory interpretation that requires little analysis of the underlying facts.” Id., at 4 (inter- nal quotation marks omitted). We granted certiorari. 601 U. S. 1166 (2024). II I would dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted. The question presented has divided the Circuits and merits this Court's attention. But, the parties dispute an important, factbound, threshold issue that the court below did not pass upon. And, the intertwined question of how to defne a civil RICO injury is inadequately briefed. 618 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Thomas, J., dissenting A We took this case to decide whether economic losses fow- ing from personal injuries are injuries to business or prop- erty for purposes of civil RICO, or merely damages. That question necessarily assumes the existence of a personal in- jury as the starting point. Yet, in this case, the parties vigorously contest whether Horn suffered a personal injury at all. Despite its earlier theory that Horn had not suffered a personal injury, see supra, at 616–617, Medical Marijuana now argues that “Horn suffered a quintessential personal injury” by “ingesting an unwanted substance.” Brief for Petitioners 20. Horn, by contrast, contends that he “did not suffer any harm to his person,” and that his injuries were only economic in nature. Tr. of Oral Arg. 67; Brief for Respondent 29. The Second Circuit expressly sidestepped the question whether Horn suffered a personal injury by ingesting Dixie Page Proof Pending Publication X. 80 F. 4th, at 135, n. 2. The only court to have passed on the issue—the District Court—expressed different views at different points. See supra, at 616–617. I would not decide whether losses fowing from personal injuries are injuries to business or property in a case where no one knows whether the plaintiff suffered a personal injury in the frst place. If Horn did not suffer a personal injury, then our resolution of the question presented will have no bearing on this case. Because federal courts may not “ren- der advisory opinions . . . advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts,” Preiser v. Newkirk, 422 U. S. 395, 401 (1975) (internal quotation marks omitted), we ordinarily do not decide matters unless we know that our decision will have some import for the parties before us. Given the lack of clarity on whether Horn suffered a personal injury, we cannot be assured that our resolution of the ques- tion presented would affect the parties here. Even if resolving a question that might not affect these parties is “a permissible course, it does not strike me as the Cite as: 604 U. S. 593 (2025) 619 Thomas, J., dissenting most sensible one.” Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy, 601 U. S. 366, 376 (2024) (Gorsuch, J., dissenting). The question presented asks us to analyze the nature of losses that fow from a personal injury. It is diffcult to analyze the nature of downstream losses when the nature of the ini- tial event is unknown. Medical Marijuana asserts that the kind of loss at issue here—lost wages—can sometimes con- stitute an “injury,” depending on the circumstances and the event from which the lost wages fow. Reply Brief 15. That we do not know whether this case involves a personal injury severely “complicates our inquiry,” and thus counsels in favor of dismissing the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted. McDonough v. Smith, 588 U. S. 109, 125 (2019) (Thomas, J., dissenting); accord, Arizona v. City and County of San Francisco, 596 U. S. 763, 766 (2022) (Roberts, C. J., concurring) (concurring in the dismissal of the writ of certio- rari as improvidently granted because other contested issues Page Proof Pending Publication “could stand in the way of our reaching the question pre- sented . . . or at the very least, complicate our resolution of that question”). Of course, we could decide for ourselves whether Horn suf- fered a personal injury. But, “we are a court of review, not of frst view.” Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U. S. 709, 718, n. 7 (2005). And, whether Horn suffered a personal injury is a case-specifc factual fnding. Such questions do not ordi- narily merit our review. See this Court's Rule 10. Moreover, it is not clear to me that Medical Marijuana is even entitled to argue that Horn suffered a personal injury. The rule of judicial estoppel “ `generally prevents a party from prevailing in one phase of a case on an argument and then relying on a contradictory argument to prevail in an- other phase.' ” New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U. S. 742, 749 (2001). Medical Marijuana initially argued that Horn had not alleged a cognizable personal injury. See supra, at 615–616. The District Court agreed and dismissed some of Horn's state-law tort claims on that ground. Then, shortly before 620 MEDICAL MARIJUANA, INC. v. HORN Thomas, J., dissenting trial, Medical Marijuana argued that the remaining civil RICO claim failed because Horn had based the