Resurrecting Rico: Removing Immunity for White-Collar Crime

41 Pages Posted: 31 Mar 2006

Abstract

... A decade ago, I published an article in these pages entitled Judicial Immunity for White-Collar Crime: The Ironic Demise of Civil RICO. ... Part II explains how and why federal courts and Congress, respectively, dismantled RICO's civil enforcement mechanism through heightened pleading requirements and artificially restrictive readings of the statutory pattern and enterprise elements, and legislative reform denying relief to many victims of securities fraud. ... Despite these clear principles, however, many courts have dismissed RICO claims for failure to allege a proper pattern of racketeering activity, a proper enterprise, or both. ... Cases in which a racketeering victim has successfully established an investment injury are virtually nonexistent. ... First, Congress should eliminate the judicially imposed personenterprise doctrine by amending RICO to impose liability on perpetrator entities that conduct their own affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity. Otherwise, for example, neither Enron nor Arthur Andersen could be ccused, civilly or criminally, of conducting its own business through a pattern of racketeering activity. ... Most recently, this perspective proved decisive in Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., the last case in the trilogy, an employment discrimination case in which the Supreme Court rejected the Second Circuit's attempt to impose a heightened pleading standard upon employment discrimination plaintiffs. ...

Suggested Citation

Goldsmith, Michael, Resurrecting Rico: Removing Immunity for White-Collar Crime. Harvard Journal on Legislation, Vol. 41, p. 281, 2004, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=892431

Michael Goldsmith (Contact Author)

Brigham Young University ( email )

Provo, UT 84602
United States

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
200
Abstract Views
1,886
Rank
274,719
PlumX Metrics