Missouri Supreme Court Hears Fight Over 13 Medical Marijuana Licenses

The Missouri Supreme Court heard oral argument on September 23, 2026, in Hippos, LLC v. Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, with the state seeking to preserve its denial of 13 medical marijuana facility licenses after an appeals court ordered the department to grant them.

The case, No. SC101617, was set for 9 a.m. argument, and the court’s official docket page posts the argument audio. Hippos LLC submitted 14 applications for cultivation, infused-products manufacturing and dispensary licenses. The Department of Health and Senior Services awarded the company one cultivation license and denied the rest: two cultivation applications, all six manufacturing applications and all five dispensary applications. The department, represented by the attorney general’s office, is asking the court to affirm the Administrative Hearing Commission’s decisions upholding those denials, while Hippos is asking the court to reverse and order the licenses issued.

The court’s docket summary frames three questions: whether competent and substantial evidence supports the commission’s denial decisions, including how it treated two expert witnesses who testified Hippos’ answers should have scored higher; whether the cultivation denial was arbitrary and capricious, including whether identically situated applicants received different treatment; and whether the manufacturing denials rest on sufficient evidence, including whether the scorer assigned to Question 64 was qualified and whether the state constitution allows any entity to hold more than three manufacturing licenses.

The 2019 Scoring Dispute and Its Appeals

Missouri voters adopted article XIV, section 1 of the state constitution on November 6, 2018, legalizing the use and sale of marijuana for medical purposes and giving the department responsibility for licensing cultivators, manufacturers, dispensaries and testing facilities. The department capped licenses at 60 cultivation facilities, 86 manufacturing facilities and 192 dispensaries, 24 per congressional district. Because applications exceeded available licenses, the department contracted with Wise Health Solutions LLC to score them. Wise scored 2,219 applications, and the department accepted all of Wise’s scores without changing any, according to the department’s Supreme Court brief.

On December 26, 2019, the department awarded Hippos a cultivation license for a facility in Vienna, Missouri, on an application that scored 1,481.33 points, while denying applications HIPP9706 and HIPP9707, which scored 1,440.13 and 1,439.73. The lowest-scoring cultivation awardee, GF Saint Mary LLC, received 1,479.41. On January 10, 2020, the department denied Hippos’ six manufacturing applications, which scored 1,391.39, 1,391.99 and 1,383.19 against a cutoff of 1,526.16 set by Bloom Medicinals of MO LLC. On January 23, 2020, it denied the five dispensary applications, each scored 1,393.78. The lowest scores to receive dispensary licenses in the congressional districts where Hippos applied were 1,496.71, 1,487.44 and 1,513.83.

Across Hippos’ applications, identical answers to the same questions received different scores, according to the opinion issued in the case by the Missouri Court of Appeals, Southern District. Wise’s training manual, which the department reviewed and approved, told scorers the same answer must always receive the same score and treated any different result as a statistical anomaly that scorers should self-correct. The manual also reminded scorers that their notes and emails would be discoverable if scores were challenged in court, advising them: “Say it and forget it; write it and regret it.” The only scorer notes referencing Hippos listed its application identification numbers with no narrative, and neither the department nor Wise corrected the inconsistent scores.

Hippos appealed each denial to the Administrative Hearing Commission, which consolidated the three appeals for a hearing on February 17, 18 and 19, 2021. The commission issued its initial cultivation decision on November 16, 2021, granted Hippos’ motion for reconsideration, and issued an amended cultivation decision along with manufacturing and dispensary decisions on March 15, 2022, affirming every denial. The commission agreed Hippos’ identical answers had received inconsistent scores, then rescored those answers by selecting the most common score among the conflicting results, reasoning that the actual scores were the most concrete indication of the scorers’ subjective preferences and that expert testimony paled in comparison.

The Circuit Court of Maries County affirmed the commission on August 15, 2023. The Southern District reversed on March 10, 2026, in an opinion by Judge Jeffrey W. Bates joined by Judge Don E. Burrell and Chief Judge Jennifer R. Growcock, remanding with directions that the circuit court order the department to grant the 13 licenses. The court called the commission’s approach completely flawed because no notes explain the scores, held that the conflict in the unexplained scores could not be reconciled by assuming the more common score was correct, and found the denials arbitrary, capricious and unreasonable and unsupported by competent and substantial evidence.

The opinion also found that Tina Szopinski, the scorer of manufacturing Question 64, had a 13-page resume showing no cannabis-industry or business-evaluation background, while Jacob Cohen, who scored the same question on Hippos’ cultivation and dispensary applications and had experience analyzing cannabis businesses, awarded scores of 10. Szopinski’s score of 4 on Question 68 was impermissible, the court found, because that question allowed only a 0 or a 10. The department sought rehearing on March 25, 2026, which the Southern District denied on April 10, 2026, and the Supreme Court sustained the department’s transfer motion in June 2026.

The Sides’ Arguments Before the Court

In its Supreme Court brief, the department argues the commission meticulously reviewed Hippos’ challenges in three decisions and that its rescoring methodology was logical and reasonable. The state contends it contradicted Hippos’ experts, Ashley Picillo and Joe Patterson, through cross-examination spanning 66 and 34 transcript pages, establishing that the experts used different methodologies than the Wise graders, did not score blindly, and reviewed only a fraction of the more than 168,000 application answers Wise scored. Citing Krispy Kreme (DNUT ) Doughnut Corp. v. Director of Revenue, the department argues Hippos bore the burden of persuasion before the commission, which as fact-finder was free to believe all, part or none of any witness’s testimony. The brief warns that if appealing and hiring experts were enough to raise scores, the grading system would become meaningless and “the applicants with the deepest pockets ultimately succeed.”

The state also argues that awarding Hippos six manufacturing licenses would violate the Missouri Constitution. On Question 64, the department contends Szopinski was qualified, pointing to her education career and to scores of 10 she gave Hippos on other questions that Hippos has not challenged.

In its brief, Hippos raises five points, principally that the commission improperly disregarded the uncontradicted and unimpeached testimony of Picillo and Patterson, noting the department presented no expert testimony of its own and no evidence explaining why higher scores for identical answers were incorrect. Picillo, founder of cannabis consulting firm Point 7 LLC, testified that 10 of the 22 cultivation responses she reviewed deserved higher scores; under her scoring, the denied cultivation applications would have totaled 1,526.52 and 1,528.32, above the 1,479.41 cutoff. Under the expert-supported scores Hippos advances, each manufacturing application would have totaled at least 1,528.78 against the 1,526.16 cutoff, and its dispensary applications would have totaled 1,555.48 and 1,557.88, within the top 24 in their congressional districts.

Hippos also argues Szopinski lacked the background and expertise the Wise contract required, citing her resume and the blank notes section of her scoring rubric. The company asks the court to reverse the commission’s decisions and direct the department to issue the licenses. Attorney General Catherine L. Hanaway’s office, including Chief Counsel David L. McCain Jr. and Assistant Attorney General Sean M. McDowell, represents the department. Joseph D. Sheppard III and Jay Preston of Carnahan Evans PC represent Hippos.