## Facts

- Purchasers of sports and entertainment trading cards (including Pokémon) filed eight consolidated putative class actions against card manufacturers, distributors, and licensors.
- Defendants sold card packs containing a “base set” of common cards and, in some product lines, rarer “insert” (or “chase”) cards.
- Packs and boxes often stated odds of receiving an insert card, typically with disclaimers that odds were production-run averages and not guaranteed for any particular pack or box.
- Plaintiffs alleged the randomized distribution of scarce insert cards, combined with a secondary market valuing inserts more highly, operated like illegal gambling or a lottery.
- Plaintiffs did not allege they paid more than the stated retail price, received fewer cards than promised, or received cards worth less than what they paid at the time of purchase.
- The asserted loss was the failure to obtain a hoped-for insert card (or a more valuable card) from the random pack contents.

## Issues

1. Whether purchasers who paid retail price for trading-card packs and received the promised packs, but did not obtain rare insert cards, suffered injury to “business or property” sufficient for civil RICO standing under 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c).
2. Whether the alleged gambling-like nature of randomized insert cards, without an overcharge or diminution in value of the purchased product, constitutes a compensable economic injury under RICO.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of all actions for lack of civil RICO standing.
- The court held plaintiffs failed to plead a cognizable injury to “business or property” under § 1964(c).
- Because standing was dispositive, the court did not decide whether the insert-card program constituted illegal gambling or otherwise satisfied additional RICO elements.

## Legal Principles

- Civil RICO standing under 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c) requires a concrete financial loss to “business or property,” not a disappointed expectation or other non-pecuniary harm.
- A consumer who pays the stated price and receives the product purchased does not suffer RICO injury merely because the product includes a chance to receive a more valuable item and the consumer does not receive it.
- Absent allegations such as overpayment, misrepresentation causing out-of-pocket loss, or receipt of goods worth less than promised, a claim based on failure to obtain a hoped-for “bonus” item does not satisfy RICO’s injury requirement.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit concluded that trading-card purchasers who received the packs they paid for lacked civil RICO standing because the failure to obtain a rare insert card is a non-compensable disappointed expectation rather than an injury to “business or property.”


Chaset v. Fleer/Skybox Int’l, LP, 300 F.3d 1083 (9th Cir. 2002)