In Brooklyn on September 29, 2026, Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto granted GEICO summary judgment on RICO liability where a physician's "billing practice caused him to log twenty-four or more hours of services over 100 times."
Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto granted GEICO summary judgment on part of its RICO claim in Brooklyn on September 29, 2026. Her 39-page order in GEICO v. Patel identified dates when a physician billed for at least 24 hours of services in one day. The order said the physician's "billing practice caused him to log twenty-four or more hours of services over 100 times." GEICO had paid $740,000 on claims submitted between 2019 and March 5, 2026, and held at least $2.8 million more in unpaid bills. An earlier order from a second Brooklyn judge had stopped a different insurer's RICO case at the standing line, and that insurer is appealing.
On August 14, Judge Orelia E. Merchant granted the moving defendants' motions to dismiss Union Mutual Fire Insurance Company's RICO claims for lack of statutory standing. She denied those motions as to constitutional standing. Union Mutual had sued over settlements it paid in suits it alleges were staged. Merchant assumed the complaint's allegations were true for the motions. Her order made no finding that Subin Associates, Case Cash Funding, or any other defendant committed fraud.
The operative clause was short: "Plaintiff is at least two steps beyond the alleged racketeering activity." The alleged conduct, according to Union Mutual's complaint as described in Merchant's order, first reached claimants and property owners. Those owners were Union Mutual's insureds. The insurer's payments came later, after personal injury suits against the owners. The court held that this sequence did not give Union Mutual the direct injury required for a civil RICO claim.
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On August 10, in a LinkedIn post, we wrote that Union Mutual already had standing. On August 14 Judge Orelia E. Merchant granted the moving defendants' motions to dismiss for lack of RICO statutory standing, and Union Mutual noticed an appeal (2d Cir. No. 26-2558). The notice was filed September 11. The Second Circuit opened the appeal September 14, and Union Mutual filed appellate forms and a letter on September 24. The August ruling is the decision under review, not a new ruling this week.
Merchant did not hold that insurers are barred from RICO suits. Her order distinguished no-fault cases in which medical providers sent allegedly false bills straight to the insurer. In Union Mutual's case, she wrote, defendants had allegedly defrauded the claimants and insured property owners, leaving the settlement payer farther from the alleged acts. She also rejected the argument that an insurer's duty to defend alone made the injury direct. Even legal fees, potentially recoverable if directly caused by racketeering, failed on causation as pleaded here. Claims tied to still-pending underlying suits also lacked a clear and definite injury under the order.
GEICO's order shows the other side of that factual line. Matsumoto granted RICO and common-law fraud liability only for payments on dates with at least 24 billed hours. She left damages for trial and directed the parties to advise the court by October 6 how they intend to proceed. The order did not grant treble damages, fees, or a permanent injunction; it denied those requests without prejudice as premature. She also refused to decide intent as a matter of law for 17- and 20-hour days, saying GEICO had not established that working those hours was impossible. The $740,000 is GEICO's total paid on the claims identified in the order, not an award for the 24-hour dates.
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The same question has reached Judge Mark A. Kearney in Philadelphia. Kearney, last seen keeping Uber's RICO suit against Simon & Simon alive at the dismissal stage, now has a fully briefed standing motion before him. Simon & Simon moved for partial summary judgment against Uber on September 2, asking the court to dismiss all of Uber's claims with prejudice. The motion targets Uber, not its co-plaintiff Federal Express.
Uber's opposition says Farmers acted as claims administrator and Uber funded the substantial majority of the payments through its captive Aleka's collateral account. Uber also says Aleka assigned its claims to Uber. Simon's reply calls that assignment retroactive and ineffective. Simon's brief characterizes Uber's direct expense proof as a $238.56 hotel bill and a $73.98 travel reimbursement. Those are opposing litigation positions, not findings by Kearney. His earlier order had left who paid as a fact question; the standing motion now asks him to decide what the payment chain proves.
GEICO has a liability ruling limited to days billed at 24 or more hours and still must prove damages. Union Mutual's RICO claims against the moving defendants were dismissed on standing, and its appeal is open. In Philadelphia, the payment chain is still being contested on a pending motion. Kearney's September 28 order appointing a mediation special master requires a joint status report to chambers by October 26. The standing motion remains his to decide.
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