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rately, that Nevada law provided for administrative remedies only, the Ninth Circuit held that the McCarran-Ferguson Act did not bar the policy beneficiaries' suit under RICO.
Held: Because RICO advances the State's interest in combating insurance fraud, and does not frustrate any articulated Nevada policy or disturb the State's administrative regime, the McCarran-Ferguson Act does not block the respondent policy beneficiaries' recourse to RICO in this case. Pp. 306-314.
(a) The McCarran-Ferguson Act precludes application of a federal statute in face of state law "enacted . . . for the purpose of regulating the business of insurance," if the federal measure does not "specifically relat[e] to the business of insurance," and would "invalidate, impair, or supersede" the State's law. RICO is not a law that "specifically relates to the business of insurance." This case therefore turns on the question whether RICO's application to the employee beneficiaries' claims would "invalidate, impair, or supersede" Nevada's laws regulating insurance. Under the standard definitions, RICO's application in this action would neither "invalidate"—i. e., render ineffective without providing a replacement rule—nor "supersede"—i. e., displace while providing a substitute rule—Nevada's insurance laws. The key question, then, is whether RICO's application here would "impair" Nevada's law. The Court rejects the Humana petitioners' suggestion that the word "im-pair," in the McCarran-Ferguson Act context, signals Congress' intent to cede the field of insurance regulation to the States, saving only instances in which Congress expressly orders otherwise. If Congress had meant generally to preempt the field for the States, Congress could have said either that "no federal statute [that does not say so explicitly] shall be construed to apply to the business of insurance" or that federal legislation generally, or RICO in particular, would be "applicable to the business of insurance [only] to the extent that such business is not regulated by state law." Moreover, § 2(b)'s second prohibition, barring construction of federal statutes to "invalidate, impair, or supersede" "any [state] law . . . which imposes a fee or tax upon [the business of insurance]," belies any congressional intent to preclude federal regulation merely because the regulation imposes liability additional to, or greater than, state law. Were this not so, federal law would "impair" state insurance laws imposing fees or taxes whenever federal law imposed additional fees or greater tax liability. Under the federal system of dual taxation, however, it is scarcely in doubt that generally applicable federal fees and taxes do not "invalidate, impair, or supersede" state insurance taxes and fees within the meaning of § 2(b) where nothing precludes insurers from paying both. On the other hand, the
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