Page:Calcutt v. FDIC.pdf/5

Rh that a showing of proximate cause was not needed. 12 U. S. C. §1818(e)(1)(B). The Sixth Circuit agreed. The court “observed that [t]he Supreme Court has repeatedly and explicitly held that when Congress uses the phrase ‘by reason of’ in a statute, it intends to require a showing of proximate cause.” 37 F. 4th 293, 329 (2022) (some internal quotation marks omitted); see also ibid. (citing for that proposition Hemi Group, LLC v. City of New York, 559 U. S. 1, 9 (2010), and Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corporation, 503 U. S. 258, 268 (1992)).

Second, petitioner argued that he had not proximately caused the harms that the Board had identified or, in the alternative, that those harms did not qualify as harmful effects as a matter of law. See §1818(e)(1)(B). The Sixth Circuit agreed in part. Petitioner had indeed proximately caused the $30,000 charge off on one of the Bedrock Transaction loans, the court held, because he had “participated extensively in negotiating and approving the Bedrock Transaction.” 37 F. 4th, at 330. But the $6.4 million in losses on other Nielson Loans were a different matter. Petitioner could be held responsible only for “part” of that harm, the court explained, because “[t]he Bank probably would have incurred some loss no matter what Calcutt did.” Id., at 331. Finally, none of the investigative, auditing, and legal expenses incurred in dealing with the Nielson Entities could qualify as harms to the Bank, because those expenses occurred as part of the Bank’s “normal business.” Ibid.

Despite identifying these legal errors in the Board’s analysis, the Sixth Circuit nevertheless affirmed the Board’s decision by a 2-to-1 vote. The court concluded that substantial evidence supported the Board’s sanctions determination, even though the Board never applied the proximate cause standard itself or considered whether the sanctions against Calcutt were warranted on the narrower set of harms that the Sixth Circuit identified. See id., at 333–335.

We now reverse.