It has been traditional RICO case law that that the statute says exactly and only what it says: that only damages of business and property are compensible under 18 USCA 1964(c), the civil cause of action.
We argue that damages should be considered, under RICO, more broadly under certain circumstances, and that these circumstances arise in our Amended Complaint.
To start at the beginning go the DIARY PAGE.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA
BRYSON CITY DIVISION
____________________________________________
|
WILLIAM C. HAMMEL, |
ALAN J. BELLAMENTE, |
et al., | MEMORANDUM ON
| DAMAGES
Plaintiffs | AND
| CAUSALITY
vs. | (Attachment 6)
|
STATE FARM MUTUAL AUTOMOBILE |
INSURANCE CO., | No. 2:99:CV-44-T
STATE FARM INDEMNITY COMPANY, |
et al. |
|
Defendants |
___________________________________________|
SHORT CAPTION: HAMMEL v STATE FARM
MEMORANDUM ON DAMAGES AND CAUSALITY
Summary:
Plaintiffs will argue, in nonexclusive alternatives: That
real and permanent business and property damages were primary
in this particular case; that consequential personal damages
flowed proximately from these primary business damages; that
damages to business were also personal damages in this case,
and that personal and business damages need not be seen as
one flowing from the other, but that they are simultaneous and
and independent with intertwining consequences as time
progresses; and that damages compensable under RICO in this
particular case should not be solely restricted to those of
business and property precisely because of the legally
intertwined conditions of persons and businesses. Finally,
Plaintiffs argue, generally, that although in SEDIMA, S.P.R.L.
v. IMREX Co., 473 US 479 (1985), the court quietly accepts
that only "business and property" are compensable under RICO,
Justice Marshall, in his dissenting opinion actually gives
reason to expand this restriction on damages, in some cases,
rather than giving the reductio ad absurdum argument that he
sought in order to contradict the majority opinion.
Preliminaries:
18 Chap. 96 nowhere defines the meaning of of the word 'business',
and there are several ways in which it can be construed.
There are 'businesses' whose sole purpose is to make a profit,
and from which an owner and/or employees derive income directly or
indirectly by providing goods and/or services; there are not for
profit businesses, 501(C)(3), which may not produce a profit;
a "Subchapter S" corporation is expected to lose money in its
infancy while it is being capitalized and building its power
to produce income.
The American College Encyclopedic Dictionary, Spencer Press (1953)
gives as the first meaning, "one's occupation, profession or trade";
Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (2d ed.) (1953) gives eight
meanings, the first is obs. "busyness", the second gives "one's
rightful work or personal concern", the third gives "one's particular,
esp. one's regular work, occupation, or employment". Any specific
involvement with commercial or economic matters appear at and
below the sixth meaning. There is no specific requirement that one
derives income from the activity or even nonactivity of one's
business, although the possibility is inherent.
The destruction of businesses that produce a product but do not
produce income, is still an immediate injury to business even
though one can also see consequent direct injury to future product
or future income. Plaintiff Hammel had "businesses" that consisted
of scientific research and artistic production, upon which he
worked for over 20 years, yet that produce little or no income,
around the time of the MVA, and also around the time of the
injuries being discernable as having direct cause in the
racketeering enterprises of the Defendants.
These non-income producing businesses nevertheless had existence
and production can be demonstrated. These too have sustained
injures diretly caused, by Defedants' Racketeering activities,
to be destroyed. Yet are they not businesses with future potential
of income?
I.
A.
HOW property and business suffered setbacks from the MVA:
Initial consequences of the MVA are the issue of State suits in
New Jersey.
physical - DAMAGES (reversible)
business |
property - financial | - SETBACKS
Initial damages caused physical, business and property SETBACKS
that were recoverable, and physical DAMAGES, that were also
correctable, recoverable, and reversible at the time of SFI's
denials of all medical benefits, which benefits were reasonably
expected by Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs do not claim these initial
and reversible injuries, nor seek recompense for them. That is
a matter for the Judicial System of New Jersey.
Were it not for the activities of the enterprises, these damages
and setbacks would have been mended so as not to have resulted
in any significant discontinuity in either Plaintiff's life, and
would not have left Plaintiffs with permanent and severe damages.
This is what gives rise to Plaintiffs' Federal claims and the
damages for which they seek recompense. Plaintiffs explain in
more detail in the following subsections B and C.
B.
HISTORY and BACKGROUND
Before the MVA of September 16, 1994:
Plaintiff Bellamente had been recovering from a previous
MVA of August 6, 1992, which occurred while he was insured
by State Farm Mutual. During that recovery period, business
setbacks resulted, no claims for which were made.
Plaintiff Hammel had never been injured in any MVA, was
active and athletic, and was completely asymptomatic regarding
any alleged previous physical or emotional conditions that
have ensued.
Business setbacks of Plaintiffs' began with the decreased ability
of both Plaintiffs to own, operate and maintain a retail video
rental business, a computer consulting business, and a not
uncomplicated conservatorship.
After SFI's unlawful denials of medical benefits, Plaintiffs'
time and energy, required to deal with unending patterns of
racketeering tactics of SFI in denying claims and delaying their
responses, precluded Plaintiffs' normal and usual operations
of their businesses.
By the time Plaintiffs understood the scheme of calculated
fraud of SFI, their business setbacks, having been made so
severe, found it financially impossible to seek the necessary
medical treatment, except under the insurance benefits to
which they were entitled.
Though there were physical injuries from the MVA, as all Plaintiffs'
treating physicians, as well as SFI's 3 IMEs by Dr. Linder, have
affirmed, those were seemingly acute in nature, and occurring at
the time of MVA. They are totally distinct from injuries claimed
here, which were knowingly, and recklessly inflicted on Plaintiffs
through the racketeering enterprises of the Defendants.
The injury, to business and business property, being its complete
loss, along with the loss of the ability "to do business" and
"to work", meaning to work reliably in some way, did NOT flow from
the MVA injuries, but rather exactly from the racketeering activities
of the defendants, and their predicate acts, the purpose of which
was to profit mutually, and to annihilate the insurance in fact,
that plaintiffs had been paying for, and relied upon.
When the inevitablitiy of loss of business and residence became
clear in November 1995, the last desperate act was the writing
of the complaints to The New Jersey Department of Insurance
Department of Consumer Complaints. The amount of time and energy
required to write those was enormous, all of which should have
been spent on what was left of the video business. That practically
removed Plaintiff Hammel from business activities.
C.
In 1988 Plaintiff Bellamente was appointed conservator for his
elderly aunt Edna M. Clough, manged her care and investments,
and continued as conservator until about March 1995, when he
finally had to resign that appointment due to loss of his ability
properly to manage his aunt's affairs. Plaintiff Bellamente's
income from that source was then lost.
As a result of a prior MVA in 1992, Plaintiff Bellamente's retail
video rental businesses in Midland Park, New Jersey, and then in
Rochelle Park, New Jersey, had to be closed, in 1993 and 1994
respectively. Those businesses were operated as Ultra Videos
Inc., a corporation begun by Plaintiff Bellamente, et. al.,
in 1991. Plaintiff Hammel designed and wrote the computer
software, installed and maintained all hardware used to operate
the businesses, and was an officer in Ultra Videos Inc.
On August 6, 1993, a retail video rental business was opened by
both Plaintiffs, in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey with Plaintiff
Bellamente as a d/b/a. As Plaintiff Bellamente's abilities became
more limited, that business was sold to Plaintiff Hammel early in
1994 and the d/b/a "Ultra Videos" was relinquished by Plaintiff
Bellamente, and registered to Plaintiff Hammel.
This remaining video store in Ridgefield Park was about 13 months
in operation at the time of the MVA. Plaintiffs had taken, and
continued to take as little money from the video business as possible
in order that the money be reinvested in a business that was started
completely new, in order to build a strong inventory that would
attract customers. At the time of the MVA, by having done that,
and through Plaintiffs' physical presence and business concept of
the highest level of personal service, the business thrived in that
one year, greatly exceeding their initially calculated growth, so
that salaries might just begin to have been taken.
Important to the growth of the video business was Plaintiffs'
physical presence and interaction with customers, Plaintiffs
made it a practice to: learn customers' names and their tastes
and needs; waive late charges and give free rentals to those
they learned had their own personal setbacks; and knew the
movies that were being rented, and whether a given movie would
be suitable for a customer's children. Plaintiffs' absences
for physical and medical reasons, and their difficulty in
keeping up with ordering and knowing their increasing stock
were, at first, tolerated by their customers. Plaintiffs had
one occasional helper in their friend, Mrs. Patricia Buser.
Mrs. Buser's knowledge and abilities matched those of Plaintiffs,
and her acceptance of, and dedication to their business concept
made her invaluable as she tended the business, most frequently
without remuneration, after the MVA, when neither Plaintiff
could, to help mitigate business setbacks.
In November 1994, Plaintiff Bellamente was caused to fall down
stairs by MVA injury related numbness and weakness in his feet.
His chiropractor immediately arranged an emergency appointment
with a neurologist, and it became apparent that Plaintiff had
injuries more serious than thought, requiring treatment by other
than a chiropractor. This Plaintiff was referred to Peter H.
Schmaus, M.D., Gary Alweiss, M.D., and other physicians.
Around December of 1994, chiropractor, Dr. Peter N. Boulukos
became suspicious that physical damages were present that
might require other than chiropractic treatment in Plaintiff
Hammel as well, and referred him to Peter H. Schmaus, M.D. In
preparation for these visits to Dr. Schmaus, and others, Dr.
Boulukos ordered radiologicals of the apparently insulted
body parts, which indeed showed, according to radiological
reports and consultations with other physicians, the existence
of damages that required a more aggressive, and medical, in
addition to chiropractic treatment.
II.
HOW business and property were permanently damaged, and how
permanent personal injury was sustained by both Plaintiffs:
Prolongation of benefit denial by contrived and fraudulent
delays of Defendants SFI and SFM, through their patterns of
racketeering activities, caused parallel business and personal
setbacks to be thrown into an indefinite future, and were
cumulative, as Plaintiffs became unable even to plan appropriately.
There was a point after the denials when Defendants SFM and SFI
began to cause damages that were not reversible. It was their
denials and delays as acts committed within the enterprises that
caused actual property and business damages by wasting Plaintiffs'
time and energy to deal with SFI that would otherwise have
profitably been spent on operating Plaintiffs' businesses.
If not for the intrusion of these racketeering enterprises,
these business damages would never have occurred. Plaintiffs
business prospered beyond their expectations, within their
period of business' existence due to Plaintiffs' attention
and good management until the racketeering schemes of the
Defendants interfered considerably with that attention and
good management.
Moreover, Plaintiffs' daily activities ineluctably shifted
from their proper businesses to the daily chores of attempting
to deal with Defendant SFI in the matter of its unlawful
denials of medical benefits stemming from its patterns of
racketeering activities. The amount of necessary time and
effort expended on dealing with SFI severely and harmfully
distracted Plaintiffs' attention from their proper businesses.
Failure of Plaintiffs' attention to their businesses, already
being hampered by the lack of appropriate treatment of their
physical injuries resulting from the accident, and being
exacerbated by having to deal with SFI's unwarranted intransigence
in parallel, caused further business injuries, leading from
rapidly declining income to loss of property: the inability to
pay business debts caused Plaintiffs to liquidate personal
property, which was insufficient to prevent foreclosure on
Plaintiff Bellamente's residence, which both Plaintiffs occupied
and in which Plaintiff Hammel had a money interest.
Though, initially, there were both business and property
damages, and also physical and other personal damages,
these ran in parallel, as opposed to business damages having
been solely caused by the physical damages. Permanent physical
damages may be one much later proximate cause of permanent
business damages, which is to say the inability to ressurect
a business of any sort, but that is not the the direct damage
in their RICO claims of the first first epoch in New Jersey.
The prolongation of the racketeering activities of the enterprises,
even into the litigation process itself, is the overriding
cause of both permanenancy of business and physical failures,
separately and together. Both epochs separately are the issues
in this action.
The video business and the computer consulting business owned
by Plaintiff Hammel were both run, not as corporations, but
as d/b/a's. Thus the notion of business, business property,
person and personal property were not distinct entities.
A registered d/b/a preserves a "business name" that is attached
to the person who is doing business. The d/b/a, which is the
business is, in fact, simply a protected name for the person.
Setbacks and damages to business were compensated by personal
reserves. That a business setback or loss is also a personal
setback or loss is a result of Plaintiffs prudently attempting
to mitigate their damages by preserving business and income,
not a result of direct personal damage.
The denials, delays, deceit, and trickery, used to hide
essential fraud, extortion, breaches, and other torts
committed by defendants acting within the enterprises in
patterns of racketeering activities have:
a. caused large additional business and property damages
as a result of acts committed by defendants within the
enterprises, changing what would have been setbacks into
irrecoverable and irreversible damages.
b. made all damages irrecoverable, except by Plaintiff's
present action in this Court.
These acts, and their continuation despite repeated notice
to SFI over a period of five (5) years have each, separately
and together, contributed to:
a. causing great further physical damages
b. making the physical damages of a. irrecoverable
and irreversible, causing
c. a. and b. causing debilitating and long term, and
possibly permanent psychological damages
d. a., b. and c. causing further physical and property
damages, and the destruction of future income and
life as it was known to Plaintiffs
e. a., b., c. and d. creating future damages which
require extraordinary financial, physical,
psychological and medical support for the remainder
of both Plaintiffs' lives.
Permanent Personal damages that arose from the claims
handling tactics, which are an inherent scheme in the
Defendants' SFI and SFM's patterns of racketeering activities,
put both Plaintiffs in the economic position of not being able
to transcend the denials of medical benefits and proceed with
medically necessary surgeries. Surgeries were eventually
performed when Plaintiffs, deprived of all income by Defendants,
became sufficiently impoverished to be able to receive Medicaid
under SSI, in North Carolina. Though SSI qualification merely
confirmed disability on medical grounds, it is clear that
Plaintiffs' disabilities and their impoverishment did not
appear magically at that moment. The actual financial disabilities
were the reason for Plaintiffs' move from New Jersey to their
current residence in one of North Carolina's most remote and
isolated areas.
When through a business damage, a personal damage is caused
that disables a person from all physical activities he has
previously known, this is an even more grievous damage than
should all his business and property simply be destroyed.
In the latter case, it is still possible, though perhaps
difficult to start anew. In the former case of extensive
disability, even this option has been removed, so that
business and personal damages stemming from continued
business damages are both irrevocable and irreversible.
Unless both business and property damages, and personal
damages are all compensable under the conditions of this
case, business and property damages, compensable under
RICO, become, in fact, not compensable, thus violating
the notion of compensability as prescribed in the statutory
language. This is a particular case where personal damages
should be allowed as coalescent with business and property
damages in conformity with the provision of RICO's Liberal
Construction Clause, that this title "shall be liberally
construed in order to effect its remedial purposes."
One should then ask: what are the remedial purposes of RICO?
From the RICO Statute, one reads in the:
Congressional Statement of Findings and Purpose
"It is the purpose of this Act [see Short Title note above]
to seek the eradication of organized crime in the United States
by strengthening the legal tools in the evidence-gathering process,
by establishing new penal prohibitions, and by providing enhanced
sanctions and new remedies to deal with the unlawful activities of
those engaged in organized crime."
Also, in SEDIMA, the Court finds the remedial purposes of RICO
powerfully expressed in 1964(c), empowering its civil remedies.
In their Memorandum in Support of Motion to Dismiss, or in
the Alternative to Stay, at II(A), Defendants argue:
"An allegation of personal injury and pecuniary
losses occurring therefrom are not sufficient to
meet the statutory requirement of injury to "business
or property." (Bast v Cohen, Dunn & Sinclair, PC,
59 F.3d 492, 495 (4th cir. l995) See also (McMurtry v
Brasfield, 654 R. Supp, l224-25 (E.D..Va.l987)
(plaintiffs lacked standing to sue for emotional distress
and similar personal injuries.)
Plaintiffs have already argued that, in this case, the concepts
of "business and property" damages may not be, in actuality, as
distinct from "personal damages" as they might ordinarily be
construed because of the special circumstances of this action.
In Bast, the only injuries claimed were indeed personal,
and only "extreme mental anguish" resulting from the
acquisition of knowledge; there were no business or property
damages, nor were they alleged. These citations then, are
not all applicable to the facts and allegations of this
action.
Most Courts hold, even outside of RICO, that personal damages
in the form of mental distress, anguish or anxiety are not
compensable unless there has been an underlying physical
damage from which it results or with which it is associated.
Mental anguish or distress alone is generally not compensable,
except under certain unusual circumstances. Applying the mold,
and therefore the conclusions, of the constructions in damages
of the Bast Court to the present case is inappropriate. It does
not fit the present facts nor Plaintiffs' constructions.
Medically, it is well known that emotional damages can be
involved in a cyclic way with physical damages; and it is
clear that emotional damages can also be similarly involved
with loss of business and property, most especially when the
business is the person.
The causal relationships approached using the usual proximate
cause analysis becomes quickly a nexus of proximate causes
rather than a tree of relationships, and followed further becomes
an imprecise froth of causal relationships from which a subfroth that
might be labeled "personal", cannot be reasonably extracted.
Defendants subsequently go on to say:
"Put another way, there must be a 'discernible causal
connection' or 'nexus' between the acts of the defendant
and the complained-of harm to the plaintiff.
(HMK Corp. v Walsey, 637 F. Supp. at 716)."
Plaintiffs do not see that this is the same thing put another
way, but, nevertheless, show in their amended complaint, based
on new evidence, that such a nexus of acts by Defendants has
caused the totality of damages herein complained of.
Defendants also state:
"Because the personal injuries and pecuniary losses alleged
in the Complaint resulted from a motor vehicle accident,
and were not proximately caused by any alleged conduct by
Defendants, Plaintiffs lack RICO standing."
Either Plaintiffs have not been clear, or Defendants have
misread Plaintiffs' allegations. In either case, Plaintiffs'
Amended Complaint is clear on the allegations, that the severe,
irrecoverable and irreversible damages to Plaintiffs are indeed
the result of "conduct by Defendants" in their patterns of
racketeering activities.
In the cases cited by Defendants, the facts of the cases
did not include discernible business or property damage at
all, and those plaintiffs sought damages of emotional distress
only, or sought business or property damages that were not
real or substantive.
Plaintiffs in their Amended Complaint do show a causal nexus
leading from Defendants' activities and substantive damages
to Plaintiffs.
The facts of cases cited by Defendants do not fairly meet
the facts of the present case and so are misapplied.
It is true that as a result of the MVA of September 16,
1994 plaintiffs experienced pain, and sought conservative
treatment. When the conservative treatment was determined
not to be effective, Plaintiffs, in consultation with
Dr. Boulukos, sought further investigation of the cause of
the pain. Then, through various radiologicals the source
of pain was discovered, early in 1995. Proper, yet prudent
action was taken, first in Plaintiff Bellamente's case, since,
at the time, his condition was the more serious.
Simple pain as the result of a simple acute injury is not a
permanent injury, but rather a symptom; but, pain can and did
cause injury to Plaintiffs' businesses. Through the knowing
prolongation, by Defendants, of that pain, and the underlying
reversible injuries suffered, by Plaintiffs this action; through
Defendants predicate acts and their patterns of racketeering
activities, the prime and first real injury is, in fact, the
damage to Plaintiffs' businesses. From this injury, a complicated
nexus of further injuries flowed, reinjuring business and property,
as well as creating irreversible injuries to neurological systems,
in turn causing injuries to the total body and to both Plaintiffs
by removing their capacity to "work steadily" at anything.
Indeed, even this very extortionately forced litigation
itself is simultaneously economically, physically and
emotionally damaging to both Plaintiffs.
III.
A conservatorship as a business (source of income) is personal.
A d/b/a is a personally conducted business: damage to business
and property can cause personal damages, and damage to person
can cause business and property damages. In fact, the lines
between personal damages and damage to business and property
in the case of a d/b/a are merged, even to a greater extent
than they would be in a Subchapter S Corporation, where losses
of the corporation may be taken as personal losses for purposes
of personal income tax.
IV.
Plaintiffs present the following relevant hypothetical:
Suppose there were a person whose sole "business",
(the activity from which he derives the income that
supports his existence) was a calligrapher and that
he was right handed. As a deliberate result of his
being the victim of a collection of racketeering
activities, his right hand was cut off.
How to analyze the injuries?
One could argue that the primary injury was personal, indeed
physical, and that any injury to his business flows directly
from the removal of his hand on the basis that in temporal
sequence the personal injury occurred first and that his loss
of business doesn't happen at the time of the personal injury,
but is rather spread out into the future. So, possibly, the
personal injuries as well as the business injuries would not
be compensable under RICO since the alleged causal line of
types of injuries is
personal (physical) -> business -> property
The essential postulates of this argument are that
1) A single act may have only a single result
2) If injuries are related, then they must be
causally related.
The postulates 1) and 2) are restrictive as to reality.
The fact is that any act or event can have multiple
consequences some of which reach into the future. Simply
consider a person's death.
One could then better argue that there was a primary "act",
namely the cutting off of the hand, which had simultaneous
multiple proximate injuries as consequences:
1) Personal injury to body
2) Immediate injury to business with long range
consequences that include:
a) Losses of income
b) Loss of property stemming from 2a)
c) Further personal injuries stemming
from financial inability 2a) and 2b)
to repair injury 1)
3) There arise future damages to the
totality of all possible businesses that are
peculiar to this particular person.
The essential postulates of this argument allow that:
1) An act may have simultaneous consequences
2) An injury may extend over time (permanency)
3) Injuries may be related in ways other than
by direct causal links.
Even in this simple model case, the distinctions between
business injuries and personal injuries are blurred in
reality since the person *is* the business, so a physical
damage is simultaneously a business damage and personal damage.
Though this is a simplified hypothetical model, it is real
enough to fit the situation where a racketeering enterprise,
engaged in counterfeiting, might punish an engraver for refusing
to engrave. The model also fits the situation of this case.
Given Congress's stated purposes, Plaintiffs find it difficult
to believe that Congress would arbitrarily intended to deny
the injured party relief in such a case.
It is unlikely that Congress intended to deprive of remedies
a particular subset of citizens whose members consist of
those who are self employed, making them as less than citizens
under Federal law by denying them access to the law and due
process, because their business happens to be small enough
so as not to need the protections of incorporation.
V.
Plaintiffs recite the Statutory language:
18 U.S.C. 1964(c)
"Any person injured in his business or property by reason
of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter may sue
therefor in any appropriate United States district court
and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and
the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee, ...."
Although this section of RICO seems to require that business
or property damage must be alleged, it does not read, nor is
it explicit in an exclusionary or prohibitive way of other
damages that may also be alleged and recovered. In language,
"the damages he sustains ...", and not, "these damages he
sustains ...", shows that the sustained damages for which
remedy is available do not refer back to the required damages.
By language, subsection 1964(c) leaves open what the full extent
and nature of the sustained and recoverable damages may be.
Had Congress intended that compensable damages be completely
unrestricted, it might have written "any damages he sustains";
it did not so write. Using the simple article "the", not
choosing the reflexive construction "these", signals an intent
that "the damages" may not be any separate damage, but must
be connected in some proximate way to the required damages
to "business and property".
Moreover, in SEDIMA, the court held that there was no such
thing as a "racketeering injury", and that despite the
suggestion in 1964(c) that injury had to flow from a violation
of 1962, the Court argued that eventually the injury could
also flow from the predicate acts of 1961, using the liberal
construction clause.
In the dissenting opinion of Justice Marshall, with whom
Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Powell joined
dissenting:
"In addition, the statute [RICO] permits recovery only for
injury to business or property. It therefore excludes
recovery for personal injuries. However, many of the
predicate acts listed in 1961 threaten or inflict personal
injuries - such as murder and kidnaping. If Congress in fact
intended the victims of the predicate acts to recover for
their injuries, as the Court holds it did, it is inexplicable
why Congress would have limited recovery to business or
property injury. It simply makes no sense to allow recovery
by some, but not other victims of predicate acts, and to make
recovery turn solely on whether the defendant has chosen to
inflict personal pain or harm to property in order to
accomplish its end."
has argued against the broadening of the interpretation in
the flow of damages, thereby seemingly reducing any exclusionary
or prohibitive interpretation regarding the types of damages
that may be alleged and recovered, reductio ad absurdum.
However, if one accepts the reasoning of SEDIMA, and then
follows the logic of Justice Marshall, the step in logic
does not have to be that of Justice Marshall that the flow
of injury should never have been broadened in the first place,
but rather that it has indeed been broadened, and that this
necessitates a further logical broadening in the concept
of what damages are actually compensable.
Plaintiffs note that SEDIMA does, in fact, state that in
regard to violations of 1962(c), "In addition, the plaintiff
only has standing if, and can only recover to the extent that,
he has been injured in his business or property by the conduct
constituting the violation." in reading the Statute regarding
recoverable damages, although this severe restriction is not
literally present in the Statute per se; the dissenting Justices
are also then at odds with that inclusion on the bases of equity,
logic and reason. With respect to the opinion in SEDIMA, it
is possible to reconcile Justice Marshall's dissenting argument
with the majority opinion, by making the extension that Justice
Marshall actually suggests, and arriving at a consistent
statutory interpretation.
THEREFORE, the court should construe the remedial powers
of RICO within its literal wording regarding damages that
may be recovered, in this case, and construe those remedial
powers in terms of the equity, logic and reason of statutory
entirety, and the intent of the liberal construction clause.
To allow that although business or property damages must be
present, and that the compensable damages must contain them,
but also to allow that the totality of damages compensable
may be greater than simply and strictly those of business
or property.
Not to construe this extension of compensable damages would
appear to be at odds with Court's expressed opinion in SEDIMA,
combined with the language of the statute itself.
Respectfully Submitted:
William C. Hammel Alan J. Bellamente
A-11 Moose Branch Road, A-11 Moose Branch Road,
Sweetwater Apartments 1A, Sweetwater Apartments 8A,
Robbinsville, NC 28771 Robbinsville, NC 28771
(828) 479-1547 (828) 479-1547
/S/ /S/
------------------------------- ------------------------------
William C. Hammel Alan J. Bellamente
DATE: February 4, 2000 DATE: February 4, 2000
Hammel v. State Farm Diary
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