Opinion ID: 739314
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Louisiana Statute

Text: 41 Finally, the Appellants contend that the Video Poker Law itself illustrates that the State has no property interest in the video poker licenses: 42 Any license applied for, granted, or issued under the provisions of this Chapter is a pure and absolute privilege, and the awarding, denial, or withdrawal of which is solely within the discretion of the division and, except as provided in this Chapter, without recourse at law. Any license issued or renewed under the provisions of this Chapter is not property or a protected interest under the constitutions of either the United States or the state of Louisiana. 43 La. R.S. 33:4862.1(D) (recodified at La. R.S. 27:301(D)) (emphasis added). We reject the Appellants' contention for a number of reasons. 44 First, this subsection does not speak to whether video poker licenses constitute a property interest of the State of Louisiana. Read as a whole, this subsection instead demonstrates that it was Louisiana's intent to circumscribe the property rights of the licensees, but not such rights of the State itself. Indeed, the first sentence of this subsection states that the division, i.e., the Video Gaming Division of the Louisiana State Police, has the discretion to award, deny, or withdraw the licenses. We conclude that the Louisiana legislature sought, by means of this section, to maintain its own control and ownership of the video poker licenses, and we are in full agreement with the Cleveland court that section 4862.1(D) evinces the Louisiana legislature's intent to strengthen its own property interest in the licenses by limiting the property rights of the licensees. See Cleveland, 951 F.Supp. at 1263. 45 Second, even assuming, arguendo, that section 4862.1(D) limits the State's property right in the video poker licenses, we are not bound by that limitation for purposes of the federal mail fraud statute. Congress certainly could have defined property solely by reference to state law, but it chose not to do so in § 1341. Thus, we agree with the district court that when determining whether something is property for purposes of the federal mail fraud statute, it is appropriate to look not only to state statutes but also to traditional property law. See Carpenter, 484 U.S. at 26, 108 S.Ct. at 320-21 (noting that confidential business information has long been recognized as property, and citing 3 W. Fletcher, Cyclopedia of Law of Private Corporations § 857.1 at 260 (rev. ed.1986)); Martinez, 905 F.2d at 713 (referring to the traditional property law of Pennsylvania). Under traditional property law, licensees have a protected property interest. See Martinez, 905 F.2d at 713 (citing Mackey v. Montrym, 443 U.S. 1, 10, 99 S.Ct. 2612, 2616-17, 61 L.Ed.2d 321 (1979); Beauchamp v. De Abadia, 779 F.2d 773, 775 (1st Cir.1985); Keney v. Derbyshire, 718 F.2d 352, 354 (10th Cir.1983)); Cleveland, 951 F.Supp. at 1263. The Louisiana legislature--despite section 4862.1(D)--itself recognized that video poker licensees have at least some property rights in the video poker licenses, for it legislated that a person whose license is suspended or revoked has the right to a hearing before the Video Gaming Division and the right to appeal the decision of the Division to a particular Louisiana court. See La. R.S. 33:4862.10(E) (recodified at La. R.S. 27:310(E)). 46 For the foregoing reasons, we hold that video poker licenses constitute money or property as required by the mail fraud statute.