308
Opinion of the Court
application to the policy beneficiaries' complaint would neither "invalidate" nor "supersede" Nevada law.
The key question, then, is whether RICO's application to the scheme in which the Humana defendants are alleged to have collaborated, to the detriment of the plaintiff policy beneficiaries, would "impair" Nevada's law. The answer would be "no" were we to read "impair," as the policy beneficiaries suggest, to be "interchangeabl[e]" with "invali-date" and "supersede." Brief for Respondents 14; see Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 17, n. 6 (describing the use of the three terms as an "instanc[e] of lawyerly iteration"). The answer would also be "no" if we understood "impair" to mean "the displacement of some portion of a statute or its preclusion in certain contexts." Id., at 14. This is so because insurers can comply with both RICO and Nevada's laws governing insurance. These laws do not directly conflict. The acts the policy beneficiaries identify as unlawful under RICO are also unlawful under Nevada law. See infra, at 311-313.
On the other hand, the answer would be "yes" were we to agree with Humana Insurance and Humana Inc. that the word "impair," in the McCarran-Ferguson Act context, signals the federal legislators' intent "to withdraw Congress from the field [of insurance] absent an express congressional statement to the contrary." Brief for Petitioners 10. Under that reading, "impair" would convey "a very broad proscription against applying federal law where a state has regulated, or chosen not to regulate, in the insurance industry." Merchants Home, 50 F. 3d, at 1491 (emphasis in original). See also Reply Brief 4 (McCarran-Ferguson Act "precludes federal law that is at material variance with state insurance law—as to substantive prohibitions, procedures or remedies.").
We reject any suggestion that Congress intended to cede the field of insurance regulation to the States, saving only instances in which Congress expressly orders otherwise. If
Page: Index Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007