Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc.
Headline: Court limits use of federal extortion law against anti-abortion protesters, reverses RICO verdict, and removes a nationwide injunction protecting abortion clinics from protest-related disruption.
Holding: petitioners did not commit extortion because they did not obtain property from respondents, and that defect required reversing the RICO judgment and vacating the injunction.
- Reverses RICO judgment and vacates nationwide injunction protecting clinics.
- Makes it harder to use Hobbs Act and RICO against protest conduct.
- Leaves criminal prosecution under other laws and the Freedom of Access Act.
Summary
Background
Petitioners were a coalition of anti-abortion groups called the Pro-Life Action Network (PLAN), Joseph Scheidler, and others. Respondents were the National Organization for Women (NOW) and two abortion clinics. NOW sued in 1986, saying PLAN conspired to "shut down" clinics through a pattern of racketeering that included extortion under the Hobbs Act. After a trial, a jury found many Hobbs Act and other predicate violations, awarded damages, and the district court entered a permanent nationwide injunction against the protesters.
Reasoning
The Court focused on whether the protesters "obtained" property from the clinics, as the Hobbs Act requires. Drawing on common-law meaning and the statute's history, the majority held that extortion requires both deprivation and acquisition of property. Simply interfering with or depriving clinics of their ability to operate did not show that the protesters acquired property. The Court distinguished extortion from the separate crime of coercion, applied the rule of lenity, reversed the Hobbs Act and related predicate findings, and therefore reversed the RICO judgment and vacated the injunction.
Real world impact
Because the Court found no extortion, the RICO-based verdict and the nationwide injunction were undone. Clinics cannot rely on this RICO judgment for treble damages or broad injunctive relief against similar protest conduct. The opinion leaves open other legal responses: some protest acts (trespass, property damage, threats) may still be criminal, and Congress had already enacted the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act to address clinic blockades. The Court did not decide whether private plaintiffs can obtain injunctions under RICO, because reversal made that question unnecessary.
Dissents or concurrances
Justice Ginsburg (joined by Breyer) concurred, noting Congress had passed a clinic-protection statute and expressing concern about RICO's reach. Justice Stevens dissented, arguing the majority wrongly narrowed "property," and that many courts had treated intangible business rights as property under the Hobbs Act.
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