RICO Lawsuits Against Personal Injury Lawyers: Report Counts Nearly 300 as 3M Case Clears Dismissal

Corporate defendants and insurers have filed nearly 300 civil racketeering lawsuits since 2024, and at least 24 of them name personal injury lawyers, law firms or litigation funders as defendants, according to a report the American Tort Reform Foundation (ATRF) released on October 6, 2026. The report lands a week after a Kentucky federal judge let 3M's RICO case against three black-lung lawyers proceed, and the scorecard so far shows that RICO lawsuits against personal injury lawyers can survive a motion to dismiss but are far from a sure thing: Uber, FedEx and 3M have cleared the pleading stage, while Ford, Uber's New York case and a group of construction-accident reinsurers have lost.

The report is advocacy from the tort reform side, and its framing ("fraud rings") is the plaintiffs' framing in the underlying RICO complaints, not a judicial finding. What makes it worth reading for practitioners is the count, the list of filers, and the fact that it arrives as the first wave of these cases is producing rulings that tell both sides how the theory will be tested. This article sets out what the report says, how the major cases have actually come out, the doctrines deciding them, and what the trend means for plaintiffs' firms, defendants, insurers and funders.

What the ATRF report on RICO lawsuits against personal injury lawyers found

The ATRF report, issued during the tort reform movement's annual Lawsuit Abuse Awareness Week, makes four core claims.

First, the volume: businesses and insurers have filed nearly 300 civil racketeering lawsuits since 2024 over alleged litigation and claims fraud. Second, the subset: ATRF analyzed 24 of those cases that name attorneys, law firms or litigation funders as defendants, filed by companies including Uber, FedEx, Ford Motor Co. and 3M. Third, the conduct alleged: staged automobile accidents and staged falls, fake or exaggerated injuries, and unnecessary medical treatment or inflated charges, built on what the complaints describe as coordinated relationships among lawyers, medical providers, claim recruiters ("runners") and funders. Fourth, the geography: the alleged schemes cluster in New York, California, Illinois and Pennsylvania, states the group's annual "Judicial Hellholes" list has long singled out.

American Tort Reform Association president Tiger Joyce framed the turn to RICO as a judgment that ordinary tools have failed, saying that sanctions rules and bar discipline cannot address a scheme spanning hundreds of cases in dozens of courtrooms. That argument matters legally as well as rhetorically. Defendants in these cases routinely answer that the proper remedy for a bad tort claim is to defend it in the tort case, seek Rule 11 or 28 U.S.C. § 1927 sanctions, or refer the lawyer to disciplinary counsel, not to sue the lawyer for treble damages in a separate federal action. The report is, in part, a brief against that position.

What the report does not establish is that the alleged fraud occurred. Every case it counts is an allegation. Several have already been dismissed, and none of the cases naming law firms has reached a merits judgment.

How many RICO lawsuits have been filed against personal injury lawyers?

ATRF's figure is nearly 300 civil RICO suits since 2024 by businesses and insurers, of which it analyzed 24 naming lawyers, firms or funders. The larger number includes many suits aimed only at clinics, recruiters and claimants; the 24 are the ones that put the plaintiffs' bar itself in the caption.

That smaller group is where the doctrinal fights are happening, because suing a lawyer over litigation conduct triggers defenses that suing a clinic does not: First Amendment petitioning immunity, litigation privilege, and the argument that the lawyer's role in a tort claim is simply advocacy. The repeat filers are well known by now:

• Uber has filed RICO actions against personal injury firms and medical providers in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Miami and New York, and in April 2026 joined Liberty Mutual in a separate Eastern District of New York suit against 14 individuals and eight medical providers over an alleged staged-accident ring running about 19 months.
• FedEx joined Uber as co-plaintiff in the Philadelphia case against Simon & Simon.
• Ford sued three California lemon law attorneys and their firms over allegedly inflated fee petitions.
• 3M sued three Kentucky lawyers over dust-mask claims brought on behalf of coal miners.
• Insurers and reinsurers, including Greater New York Mutual, Roosevelt Road Re, Union Mutual and Tradesman Program Managers, have filed a series of New York cases over construction-accident and auto claims. Greater New York Mutual's January 2026 suits name Liakas Law and a funder, Jumpstart Funding, alongside health care practices.

Can a company sue a personal injury lawyer under RICO?

Yes. Nothing in the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act exempts lawyers, and 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c) gives any person "injured in his business or property" by a RICO violation a private claim for treble damages plus attorney's fees. That remedy, three times actual damages with a built-in form of fee shifting, is why companies reach for RICO rather than common-law fraud.

To get there, a plaintiff must plead the elements of a substantive violation, usually under § 1962(c): conduct of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity, meaning at least two related predicate acts within ten years. In the cases against plaintiffs' firms, the predicates are almost always mail and wire fraud, alleged through the transmission of fabricated or inflated medical records, demand letters, and settlement communications. Most complaints add a § 1962(d) conspiracy count. The plaintiff must also show that the racketeering proximately caused a concrete injury to its own business or property.

The Supreme Court widened the door slightly in Medical Marijuana, Inc. v. Horn, decided April 2, 2025. Writing for a 5-4 majority, Justice Amy Coney Barrett held that civil RICO can reach business or property harms that derive from a personal injury. Horn was a consumer case about a truck driver fired after a THC test, but its reading of "business or property" removed one argument defendants had used to keep RICO away from injury-adjacent disputes. In the current wave, though, the companies suing are the payors, and their claimed injury is money paid out in settlements, defense costs and inflated medical specials. That is classic business-or-property harm; the harder questions are causation and immunity.

Does the Noerr-Pennington doctrine protect personal injury lawyers from RICO claims?

Sometimes, and the split on that question is the single most important legal development in this wave. The Noerr-Pennington doctrine, which began as an antitrust rule (Eastern Railroad Presidents Conference v. Noerr Motor Freight, 1961; United Mine Workers v. Pennington, 1965), protects petitioning the government, including filing lawsuits, from liability. Federal courts have extended it to RICO claims. The protection disappears for "sham" petitioning. Under Professional Real Estate Investors v. Columbia Pictures (1993), a single suit is a sham only if it is objectively baseless and brought for an improper purpose; for a series of filings, courts ask whether the suits were brought as a policy without regard to their merits.

The results so far:

Ford lost on immunity. In Ford Motor Co. v. Knight Law Group, Ford alleged that three lemon law attorneys affiliated with Knight Law Group, Altman Law Group and Wirtz Law inflated fee requests across thousands of cases, submitting more than $100 million in fee requests to Ford, and it sought $300 million. U.S. District Judge Michelle Williams Court of the Central District of California dismissed the case on November 24, 2025, holding the conduct protected by Noerr-Pennington and finding the RICO claim deficient, and on March 11, 2026 dismissed the amended complaint without leave to amend. Fee petitions are filings made to a court in pending litigation; even if inflated, the court reasoned, they are petitioning.

Uber and FedEx won in Philadelphia. In Uber Technologies, Inc. v. Simon & Simon P.C., No. 2:25-cv-05365, U.S. District Judge Mark A. Kearney of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied the defendants' joint motion to dismiss on May 11, 2026. The complaint alleges that the firm steered clients from vehicle collisions with Uber and FedEx drivers, many with minor or no injuries, to a set of preselected medical providers and experts who generated records supporting large damages claims, turning low-value claims into lawsuits valued above $1 million. Judge Kearney looked at the level of generality: the companies were not suing over any one complaint but over an alleged scheme in which lawsuits were one component. Commentators reading the opinion have summarized it as holding that Noerr-Pennington does not shield pre-filing fabrication of evidence, a pattern of filings pursued without regard to merit, or misrepresentations that go to the core of the underlying claims.

Uber largely won in Los Angeles. In Uber Technologies, Inc. v. Downtown LA Law Group LLP, No. 2:25-cv-06612, filed in July 2025 against Downtown LA Law Group, the Law Offices of Jacob Emrani and Encino spine surgeon Dr. Greg Khounganian, U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett in late August 2026 allowed most RICO claims to proceed, dismissed one conspiracy count, and concluded that Noerr-Pennington does not insulate sham litigation. Uber was given until September 30, 2026 to amend.

The line between the Ford and Uber rulings is fairly clean. Where the alleged wrong is the content of filings in pending cases, such as a fee petition a judge can scrutinize, courts treat it as petitioning and look to the presiding judge as the remedy. Where the alleged wrong is the manufacture of evidence before suit, in records and treatment that exist outside any courtroom, courts have been willing to let the case go to discovery.

RICO lawsuits against personal injury lawyers: the scorecard

Case	Court	Filed by	Defendants (lawyer side)	Key ruling	Result
Uber v. Simon & Simon, No. 2:25-cv-05365	E.D. Pa. (Kearney, J.)	Uber, FedEx	Simon & Simon P.C., Marc Simon	MTD denied May 11, 2026; Noerr-Pennington rejected at pleading stage	Proceeding; counterclaims filed June 8, 2026
Uber v. Downtown LA Law Group, No. 2:25-cv-06612	C.D. Cal. (Garnett, J.)	Uber	Downtown LA Law Group; Law Offices of Jacob Emrani	MTD granted in part, denied in part, late Aug. 2026; one conspiracy count out	Proceeding; amendment due Sept. 30, 2026
3M v. Hammond, No. 6:26-cv-00034	E.D. Ky. (Wier, J.)	3M	Glenn M. Hammond, Michael B. Martin, Johnny Givens	Sept. 30, 2026: RICO claims survive; fraud and civil conspiracy dismissed	Proceeding to discovery
Uber v. Law Group of South Florida, No. 1:25-cv-22635	S.D. Fla. (Altonaga, J.)	Uber	Law Group of South Florida; Andy Loynaz	97-page complaint over five alleged staged crashes near Hialeah, 2023-2024	Pending
Uber v. New York firms and doctors (filed Jan. 2025)	E.D.N.Y. (Merchant, J.)	Uber	Several New York PI firms and lawyers	Aug. 14, 2026: no plausible enterprise or conspiracy; injury not "clear and definite"	Dismissed
Ford v. Knight Law Group	C.D. Cal. (Court, J.)	Ford	Three lemon law attorneys	Nov. 24, 2025 dismissal on Noerr-Pennington; Mar. 11, 2026 without leave to amend	Dismissed
Roosevelt Road Re v. Subin	2d Cir.	Reinsurer, program manager	New York construction-accident lawyers	July 2026: plaintiffs too remote; no direct injury	Dismissal affirmed
GNY Mutual v. Liakas Law	N.Y. federal court	Greater New York Mutual	Liakas Law; funder Jumpstart Funding	Filed Jan. 2026	Pending

Three of the eight have survived a motion to dismiss, three are dismissed, and two are pending. Every survivor involves allegations of fabricated evidence or knowingly false claims; every dismissal turned on a threshold defense (immunity, causation or ripeness) rather than a finding that the alleged conduct did not happen.

The September 30 ruling: 3M's RICO case against black-lung lawyers survives

The newest ruling in the wave came from U.S. District Judge Robert E. Wier of the Eastern District of Kentucky, who on September 30, 2026 denied motions to dismiss 3M's RICO claims against Pikeville attorney Glenn M. Hammond and attorneys Michael B. Martin and Johnny Givens.

3M alleges that the three lawyers banded together to solicit "cookie-cutter" claims from former coal miners and their families blaming 3M dust masks for black lung disease, filing 22 complaints in six Eastern Kentucky counties before six different judges and building an inventory of about 850 claims that 3M says it spent millions investigating and litigating. The theory is volume as leverage: according to the complaint, the defendants operated a RICO enterprise that filed false claims to increase the inventory against 3M, raise defense costs and litigation risk, and push the company toward large aggregate settlements. 3M's history makes that theory concrete; in 2019 it agreed in principle to settle a substantial majority of the coal mine dust lawsuits in Kentucky and West Virginia for $340 million.

Judge Wier did not endorse the theory. He wrote: "The Court has many questions about the ultimate factual viability of the case but will not, at this stage and on this record, dismiss it." He also dismissed 3M's state-law claims for fraud and civil conspiracy, so the case proceeds to discovery on the federal racketeering counts alone.

For the mass tort bar, 3M v. Hammond is the most significant of the surviving cases, because it is not about staged car crashes. It attacks inventory-building in a product liability docket, the business model behind most mass tort practices. A RICO theory that an aggressively assembled claim inventory, filed to raise settlement value, can be racketeering if enough claims are allegedly false will be tested in discovery now, and defendants in other mass torts will watch how 3M proves falsity claim by claim.

Why was Uber's New York RICO lawsuit dismissed?

Uber's New York case shows how these suits fail even when the allegations are vivid. Uber alleged that New York personal injury firms recruited passengers from minor collisions, sent them to cooperating doctors, and used causation opinions describing serious injuries so that claims would clear the "serious injury" threshold that New York's no-fault law sets for non-economic damages, inducing larger settlements.

On August 14, 2026, U.S. District Judge Orelia E. Merchant of the Eastern District of New York dismissed the suit. The ruling turned on pleading, not on a finding about what happened. The court held that Uber had not plausibly alleged a coordinated enterprise or conspiracy linking the firms and providers, had not adequately tied the alleged conduct to the medical-practice enterprises it named, and had not alleged a "clear and definite" injury while the underlying state court personal injury cases were still unresolved.

That last ground matters most in practice. If a company's RICO injury is the excess it paid on fraudulent claims, a court may treat the injury as unripe until those claims are resolved, which pushes RICO plaintiffs to sue over cases they have already settled or tried. Simon & Simon has turned exactly that sequence into a counterclaim theme, alleging that Uber and FedEx settled some state court cases and then reused them as evidence of fraud in federal court.

The Second Circuit added a separate limit in July 2026 in Roosevelt Road Re, Ltd. v. Subin, affirming dismissal of a suit by a reinsurer and a program manager against New York construction-accident lawyers. The plaintiffs sat at the end of a chain, reinsuring an insurer that covered the employers, owners and contractors who were the direct targets of the claims, and the court held that RICO requires a direct relationship between the alleged wrongdoing and the plaintiff's harm. Reinsurers and other remote payors will struggle to use RICO in the Second Circuit; direct defendants like Uber, which pays its own claims, do not face the same problem.

What happened in Uber's RICO lawsuit against Simon & Simon?

The Philadelphia case is the furthest along and the most closely watched. Uber filed in September 2025, with FedEx as co-plaintiff. The defendants are Simon & Simon P.C., its owner Marc I. Simon, Clifton Burt, Premier Pain & Rehab Center, Ethel Harvey, Daniel Piccillo, Philadelphia Spine Associates and Lance Yarus. The complaint alleges that the firm filed dozens of suits in Philadelphia County against the two companies over the past four years for clients with minimal or no injury, many with limited-tort auto coverage, and directed them to emergency rooms days or weeks after an accident and then through a "conveyor belt" of preselected treatment providers and experts.

After Judge Kearney denied dismissal on May 11, 2026 and ordered answers, the Simon defendants filed counterclaims on June 8, 2026 for sham litigation, abuse of process and extortion, arguing that the RICO suit itself is the sham, aimed at driving the firm out of motor vehicle cases against the two companies. The counterclaims invert the immunity analysis: if Uber's federal suit is itself petitioning, Uber needs Noerr-Pennington protection too, and the firm says the sham exception applies to Uber.

Does the RICO trend affect litigation funders?

Yes, directly. The ATRF count of 24 cases expressly includes suits naming funders, and the New York insurer cases are the template. Greater New York Mutual's January 2026 complaints name Jumpstart Funding alongside Liakas Law and medical practices, alleging that clients were steered into high-interest loans and costly procedures so that the case value would rise, with funders, providers and the contingency fee all paid out of the settlement.

For third-party litigation funding, the exposure is less about consumer pre-settlement advances as a product than about structure. A funder that finances medical treatment, takes assignments of medical liens, or refers claimants to particular providers can be pleaded as a participant in the enterprise, and RICO's conspiracy provision does not require the funder to have committed a predicate act itself. The policy fight over funding disclosure under proposed federal Rule 26 changes and state laws such as California's AB 2305 now has a litigation counterpart: in a RICO case, the funding documents are ordinary discovery.

What it means for plaintiffs' firms, defendants, insurers and funders

For personal injury firms. The cases that have survived share a fact pattern: allegations that the firm, not the client, chose the medical providers and that the records were generated for litigation. Referral relationships with treating providers, letters of protection, and lien-based treatment are lawful and common, but they are now the evidence RICO plaintiffs cite. Firms with high-volume practices against repeat defendants (rideshare companies, delivery fleets, major manufacturers) are the likeliest targets, because those defendants hold the data to show patterns across hundreds of files. The defenses that have worked so far are threshold ones: Noerr-Pennington for in-court filings, proximate cause for remote plaintiffs, and ripeness while underlying cases are pending.

For mass tort practices. 3M v. Hammond puts inventory-building in product cases on the same footing as staged-accident claims if a defendant can plausibly allege that many claims in an inventory are false. Claimant vetting, documented product identification, and medical support at intake are no longer only settlement-administration issues; they are the record a firm would rely on to answer a RICO complaint.

For corporate defendants and insurers. RICO offers treble damages and fees, but the 2026 rulings show what a complaint needs: claim-level detail on fabricated evidence, a defendant that paid the claims directly, injury from resolved rather than pending cases, and conduct that occurred outside the filings themselves. Fee-padding theories have not survived Noerr-Pennington. Every filing also invites counterclaims and discovery into the company's own claims handling.

For litigation funders. Funders named in these suits face a theory that turns underwriting and provider relationships into enterprise participation. Diligence on the firms and medical providers in a funded portfolio, and documentation that the funder does not direct treatment, are now risk-management steps with litigation consequences.

For claimants. Individual clients are rarely named in the suits counting toward the 24, but their files, treatment histories and settlements become evidence, and a RICO case can stall or reopen settlement discussions in the underlying claims.

What to watch next

• Uber's amended Los Angeles complaint, due September 30, 2026, and any renewed motion to dismiss.
• Discovery in 3M v. Hammond, which will test whether 3M can prove falsity across an inventory of about 850 claims.
• The Simon & Simon counterclaims, and whether the court treats Uber and FedEx's federal suit as protected petitioning.
• An appeal on Noerr-Pennington. A circuit decision on whether pre-suit fabrication of medical evidence falls outside petitioning immunity would set the rule for the whole wave; the Ford dismissal without leave to amend is the most likely vehicle on the defense side.
• Legislation. Tort reform groups are using the RICO numbers to press state bills on funding disclosure, medical-damages evidence and letters of protection, the subjects the ATRF report ties to the alleged schemes.

FAQ

What did the ATRF report on RICO lawsuits against personal injury lawyers find?

Released October 6, 2026, it found that businesses and insurers have filed nearly 300 civil RICO suits since 2024 over alleged claims fraud, and it analyzed 24 that name lawyers, law firms or litigation funders, filed by companies including Uber, FedEx, Ford and 3M.

Can a company sue a personal injury lawyer under RICO?

Yes. Civil RICO allows any person injured in its business or property by a pattern of racketeering, usually mail and wire fraud, to sue for treble damages and attorney's fees, and lawyers are not exempt; the company must still plead an enterprise, a pattern, and an injury its own payments directly caused.

Does Noerr-Pennington immunity protect lawyers from RICO claims?

It protects litigation conduct that is genuine petitioning, which is why Ford's fee-billing case was dismissed, but courts in Pennsylvania and California have held that it does not shield sham litigation or the alleged fabrication of medical evidence before suit.

Which companies have filed RICO lawsuits against law firms?

Uber (Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Miami and New York), FedEx (with Uber in Philadelphia), Ford (against California lemon law attorneys), 3M (against Kentucky black-lung lawyers), and insurers and reinsurers including Greater New York Mutual, Roosevelt Road Re, Union Mutual and Tradesman Program Managers.

Why was Uber's New York RICO lawsuit dismissed?

Judge Orelia E. Merchant ruled on August 14, 2026 that Uber had not plausibly pleaded a RICO enterprise or conspiracy and had not shown a "clear and definite" injury while the underlying state court injury cases remained pending.

Have any RICO cases against plaintiffs' lawyers gone to trial?

Not among the cases in the 2026 scorecard. The furthest along, Uber v. Simon & Simon and 3M v. Hammond, have only survived motions to dismiss and are in the answer and discovery stages.