“The department’s scoring criteria and the scorers’ determinations were based on the subjective valuations of the scorers. This fundamental flaw infected the entire scoring process.”
By Rebecca Rivas, Missouri Independent
A Missouri appeals court has delivered a sweeping rebuke of the state’s marijuana licensing process, ordering regulators to award Hippos LLC 13 facility licenses after finding the 2019 scoring was inconsistent and, in one case, performed by a grader whose qualifications were never established.
The unanimous ruling lands just weeks after a scathing state audit found the same flaws—erratic scoring, poor documentation and a process so opaque it cast doubt on the integrity of the results.
The decision, issued last week by the Missouri Court of Appeals Southern District, does more than revive Hippos’s long-running challenge over denied cultivation, manufacturing and dispensary licenses. It also undercuts the methodology the Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission has used to resolve cannabis licensing disputes and raises new questions about potentially hundreds of rulings issued in the nearly 850 appeals filed by unsuccessful applicants.
Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, which oversees the cannabis program, told The Independent the agency is “evaluating all options,” in terms of appealing the decision.
Hippos officials
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