Global Master Intl Group, Inc. v. Esmond Natural, Inc.

76 F.4th 1266
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit·Decided August 11, 2023·No. 21-55809·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

GLOBAL MASTER No. 21-55809 INTERNATIONAL GROUP, INC.; GLOBAL MASTER D.C. No. CORPORATION, 2:19-cv-10360- RGK-PLA Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. OPINION ESMOND NATURAL, INC.; PAUL CHIA-YIN WEI,

Defendants-Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California R. Gary Klausner, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted August 30, 2022 Submission Withdrawn January 18, 2023 Resubmitted August 7, 2023 Pasadena, California

Filed August 11, 2023 2 GLOBAL MASTER INT’L GROUP, INC. V. ESMOND NATURAL, INC.

Before: Milan D. Smith, Jr. and Ryan D. Nelson, Circuit Judges, and Gershwin A. Drain, * District Judge.

Opinion by Judge R. Nelson

SUMMARY **

RICO

The panel reversed in part the district court’s summary judgment, based on a lack of statutory standing, in an action brought by Global Master Corporation, a Chinese company, seeking relief under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act for allegedly defective products purchased from California-based Esmond Natural, Inc. Global Master Corporation and its sister company Global Master International Group, Inc., located and headquartered in California (collectively, Global Master) imported nutritional supplements from the United States and marketed them to consumers in China. Global Master alleged that Esmond Natural used lower strength or entirely different supplements to fill orders. The district court held that Global Master failed to satisfy statutory standing because it lacked a domestic injury as its alleged harm was

* The Honorable Gershwin A. Drain, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by designation. ** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. GLOBAL MASTER INT’L GROUP, INC. V. ESMOND NATURAL, INC. 3

felt in China, and civil claims brought under RICO do not allow recovery for foreign injuries. The panel held that under Yegiazaryan v. Smagin, 143 S. Ct. 1900 (2023), the district court applied the wrong legal standard. Yegiazaryan clarified that a “plaintiff alleges a domestic injury for purposes of [18 U.S.C.] § 1964(c) when the circumstances surrounding the injury indicate it arose in the United States.” Yegiazaryan held that “courts should look to the circumstances surrounding the alleged injury to assess whether it arose in the United States,” including “the nature of the alleged injury, the racketeering activity that directly caused it, and the injurious aims and effects of that activity.” The panel held that, under this test, Global Master suffered a domestic injury because, pursuant to the parties’ contracts, Global Master took all deliveries of the supplements in Los Angeles. Thus, Esmond Natural’s fraud injured Global Master’s property in California. The panel remanded to the district court for further proceedings. In a concurrently filed memorandum disposition, the panel affirmed on other issues.

COUNSEL

Richard A. De Liberty (argued) and Kavon Adli, The Internet Law Group, Beverly Hills, California, for Plaintiffs- Appellants. Andres F. Quintana (argued), Quintana Law Group APC, Agoura Hills, California, for Defendants-Appellees.

OPINION

R. NELSON, Circuit Judge:

Global Master Corporation, a Chinese company, seeks relief under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act for allegedly defective products purchased from California-based Esmond Natural, Inc. The district court held that Global Master Corporation failed to satisfy statutory standing because it lacked a domestic injury as its alleged harm was felt in China. Under the Supreme Court’s decision in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin, 599 U.S. ---, 143 S. Ct. 1900 (2023), the district court applied the wrong legal standard. Applying Yegiazaryan, we reverse and remand. 1 I A Plaintiffs-Appellants Global Master Corporation (GMC) and Global Master International Group, Inc. (GMIG) (collectively, Global Master) import nutritional supplements from the United States and market them to consumers in China. GMC is located and headquartered in China. GMIG is GMC’s sister company located and headquartered in California. From 2006 to 2017, Esmond Natural, Inc., a California company, was GMC’s chief supplier of private- label, U.S.-made supplements. Around 2017, GMC allegedly grew dissatisfied with Esmond Natural’s products because of production delays and product defects. GMC began to terminate its business relationship with Esmond

1 We address the Appellants’ remaining challenges in a concurrently filed Memorandum Disposition which affirms the district court on those issues. GLOBAL MASTER INT’L GROUP, INC. V. ESMOND NATURAL, INC. 5

Natural, and GMIG was established to supply supplements. GMIG then hired a former Esmond Natural employee, Anson Hsu, to build relationships with new suppliers, including some that had manufactured supplements used by Esmond Natural and sold to GMC. GMC claims that after Hsu started working at GMIG, he uncovered a systematic scheme of fraud in which Esmond Natural allegedly used lower strength or entirely different supplements to fill GMC’s orders. GMC sued Esmond Natural under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), alleging predicate acts of mail and wire fraud. B The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants, finding that GMC had not suffered a domestic injury because its alleged injury was mainly felt in China. Noting, at that time, that neither the Supreme Court nor the Ninth Circuit had defined the meaning of “domestic injury,” the district court pointed to two definitions used by courts: (1) where the plaintiff suffered the injury (“injury-felt test”) or (2) where the conduct that caused the injury occurred (“injury-causing test”). Compare City of Almaty v. Ablyazov, 226 F. Supp. 3d 272, 282 (S.D.N.Y. 2016) (“[T]he appropriate subject of the inquiry required by RJR Nabisco is not the location of the Crossclaim Defendants’ purportedly injurious conduct but the location where the injury itself arose.”), with Tatung Co. v. Shu Tze Hsu, 217 F. Supp. 3d 1138, 1156 (C.D. Cal. 2016) (“[T]he defendants specifically targeted their conduct at California with the aim of thwarting Tatung’s rights in California. It would be absurd to find that such activity did not result in a domestic injury to Plaintiff.” (citation & internal quotation marks omitted)). The district

court applied the “injury-felt test,” concluding that most courts have adopted the first line of reasoning: where the plaintiff suffered, or felt, the injury controls whether the injury is “domestic.” The district court noted that GMC’s inferior products (which it sold in China), and loss of goodwill (in the Chinese market) demonstrated harm felt in China. This timely appeal followed. We stayed this appeal pending the Supreme Court’s decision in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin, 599 U.S. ---, 143 S. Ct. 1900 (2023) and now address the merits. II We review the grant of summary judgment on GMC’s RICO claim de novo. Ikuno v. Yip, 912 F.2d 306, 308 (9th Cir. 1990). “[V]iewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party,” we determine whether “there are any genuine issues of material fact and whether the district court correctly applied the relevant substantive law.” Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1131 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc). III We first review RICO’s statutory framework and relevant precedent to define domestic injury. A RICO, codified at 18 U.S.C.

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Global Master Intl Group, Inc. v. Esmond Natural, Inc., 76 F.4th 1266 (9th Cir. 2023).

76 F.4th 1266 (Global Master Intl Group, Inc. v. Esmond Natural, Inc.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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