{"id":86988,"date":"2026-09-23T10:19:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T18:19:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2026\/09\/23\/missouri-supreme-court-hears-marijuana-business-licensing-case\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T19:46:45","modified_gmt":"2026-09-24T03:46:45","slug":"missouri-supreme-court-hears-marijuana-business-licensing-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2026\/09\/23\/missouri-supreme-court-hears-marijuana-business-licensing-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Missouri Supreme Court Hears Marijuana Business Licensing Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m asking this court to make findings as to the proper score for each of these applications.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday challenging an\u00a0appeals court\u2019s decision in March\u00a0directing the state to award cannabis company Hippos LLC 13 facility licenses<\/a> after finding the 2019 application scoring process was inconsistent.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been five years since the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission denied Hippos\u2019s appeal over its applications for marijuana facility licenses, after the company argued identical applications received different scores from the same grader.<\/p>\n

That dispute has since worked its way through the state court system and landed Wednesday before the seven Missouri Supreme Court judges.<\/p>\n

At issue is whether the commission acted properly when it rescored Hippos\u2019s applications by selecting the most common score given to answers the company was challenging\u2014or whether that approach was \u201ccompletely flawed,\u201d as three appellate judges found in March, because the grader left no notes explaining the scores.<\/p>\n

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which oversees the state\u2019s cannabis regulatory agency, argued Wednesday that the commission acted correctly and did a thorough investigation of the scores given to Hippos\u2019s applications. The department also urged the court to focus on the commission\u2019s decision and not to rehash the state\u2019s controversial grading process of marijuana applications as part of the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Administrative Hearing Commission\u2019s decision is under review here, not the department\u2019s initial decision,\u201d said Sean McDowell, an assistant attorney general representing the state.<\/p>\n

However, Chief Justice W. Brent Powell challenged that distinction, saying state law requires the court to combine \u201chow the agency acted\u201d and the commission\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsn\u2019t that how the statute indicates we should review this?\u201d Powell asked McDowell.<\/p>\n

McDowell agreed, saying the commission \u201csteps into the shoes\u201d of the department, conducts a review and \u201ctheir decision becomes the agency decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

In March\u2014just weeks before the appellate judges\u2019 unanimous\u00a0ruling in favor of Hippos\u2014Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick issued a\u00a0scathing state audit\u00a0of the Division of Cannabis Regulation<\/a>. The audit examined, among other issues, the state\u2019s 2019 marijuana facility licensing process, citing erratic scoring, poor documentation and a process so opaque it cast doubt on the integrity of the results.<\/p>\n

When the state was working in 2019 to build the framework of Missouri\u2019s now multi-billion dollar industry, it hired Nevada-based company Wise Health Solutions to score the nearly 2,000 applications.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn each of Hippos\u2019s applications, there were many instances in which identical answers to the same question received inconsistent scores,\u201d wrote Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District Judge Jeffrey Bates in the March ruling. \u201cThat should never have occurred if Wise\u2019s scorers had followed the instructions that they were given. Neither the department nor Wise did anything to correct this situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The three appellate judges found the commission\u2019s approach to rescoring was flawed \u201cbecause there are no notes explaining why the scores were given,\u201d the ruling states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conflict in these unexplained scores cannot be reconciled by simply assuming the more common score for a particular answer is the correct one,\u201d it states.<\/p>\n

Fitzpatrick\u2019s audit found scorers were instructed by Wise Health Solutions to take limited notes while scoring applications in order to reduce the amount of documentation that could be produced in litigation.<\/p>\n

The appellate judges agreed with Hippos that the commission\u2019s decisions affirming the state\u2019s denial of the company\u2019s applications were \u201carbitrary, capricious and unreasonable, and these decisions were not supported by competent and substantial evidence on the whole record.\u201d<\/p>\n

McDowell argued Wednesday that the commission\u2019s rescoring was valid because Hippos didn\u2019t successfully \u201cdisprove the validity of the original scores.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two witnesses for Hippos testified that the applications should have received higher scores, and the appellate judges noted that the state did not present experts to rebut their testimony.<\/p>\n

However, McDowell said the witnesses were cross-examined and one admitted that her interpretation of the grading system could be different than the graders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear from the record the department contradicted Hippos\u2019s expert witnesses,\u201d McDowell said.<\/p>\n

Hippos\u2019s attorney Austin Preston argued Wednesday that \u201csimply asking cross-examination questions\u201d wasn\u2019t enough to rebut the witnesses\u2019 testimony, and that the commission was required to make a finding about whether the witnesses\u2019 information was credible or not.<\/p>\n

Supreme Court Judge Zel Fischer pressed Preston on that argument.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen cases are tried to the trial court, we do it all the time,\u201d he said. \u201cThe assumption is that all facts not specifically found were found in accordance with the judgment. Are you suggesting that the administrative context provides a different presumption?\u201d<\/p>\n

Preston said he believes case law requires it.<\/p>\n

The judges asked if Hippos is asking the judges to remand the case back to the Administrative Hearing Commission or to make a finding themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m asking this court to make findings as to the proper score for each of these applications, which has been laid out, would satisfy the minimum cutoff and order those licenses be issued,\u201d Preston said.<\/p>\n

McDowell responded that if the judges believe additional fact-finding is necessary, the case should go back to the commission.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the proper remedy would probably be to remand to the Administrative Hearing Commission,\u201d he said, \u201cbecause they were the fact finder in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court did not issue a ruling Wednesday.<\/p>\n

This story was first published by Missouri Independent.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Photo elements courtesy of rawpixel<\/a> and Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

The post Missouri Supreme Court Hears Marijuana Business Licensing Case<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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\nRead More: Missouri Supreme Court Hears Marijuana Business Licensing Case<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m asking this court to make findings as to the proper score for each of these applications.\u201d By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday challenging an\u00a0appeals court\u2019s decision in March\u00a0directing the state to award cannabis company Hippos LLC 13 facility licenses after finding the 2019Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86988"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86989,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86988\/revisions\/86989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}