Old "friend" Wants $15k Or Threatening Federal Court.

This is a strange one.....

Location: Oregon

Throwaway account. Around a decade ago I was a medical marijuana grower in Oregon. This was completely legal with myself growing for four patients, and growing the legal limits for those patients. The idea was to provide quality medicine to them and create additional edibles and concentrates that could be sold at dispensaries to help cover costs, and hopefully profit as this was when dispensaries had started taking off.

For anyone that has never grown marijuana at this level before, it is not a cheap venture. I had two indoor grow rooms and a massive 10ft by 30ft greenhouse. This was entirely paid for by myself and another friend who was hoping to get in on the ground floor and make some profit. Monthly power bills of $800 to $1200 on top of $400 water bills, soil, nutrients, wages for when help was required, etc.

Over the course of the 2.5 or so years that I did this marijuana became legal in Oregon for anyone to use and the wholesale pricing dropped 60% or more. This led to myself and my friend losing approx $25k in total when all was said and done. Lesson learned and I thought my friend and I were both on the same page. I lost approx $10k and my friend approx $15k. There was never any contracts drawn up or anything like that. Everything was just through chatting in person or text.

Out of nowhere this friend messages me today (10 years later) asking if I was ready to pay back the $15k or if they should move forward with legal action against me. There is more details to this that I am happy to provide in DM. The question though, is do they have any ability to take legal action against me for money they invested in growing marijuana without any contract drawn up, or are they just shooting in the dark and hoping? There was not any business created or anything like that to clarify that. Thanks for the insight!