an organization telling its members not to go to patronize certain businesses in order to force them to accept pricing demands?
Sounds like racketeering to me. Can anyone say RICO ACT?
Thou shalt not stayeth at the Day's Inn
by RunningMan 41 Replies latest jw friends
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cruzanheart
What a really great point you made, gita! Now all we need is someone willing to sue. Anybody part of the hotel industry?
Nina
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Scully
DO I HAVE A RICO CLAIM? This is by far the most common question that I receive at Ricoact.com. There is no simple answer to this question because the answer depends upon the unique facts of each case.
I have found, however, that a large percentage of potential RICO claims are undermined by the following considerations:
- A RICO claim cannot exist in the absence of criminal activity. The simplest way to put this concept is: no crime - no RICO violation. This rule applies even in the context of civil RICO claims. Every RICO claim must be based upon a violation of one of the crimes listed in 18 U.S.C. ยง 1961(1). The RICO Act refers to such criminal activity as racketeering activity. RICO claims cannot be based upon breach of contract, broken promises, negligence, defective product design, failed business transactions, or any number of other factual scenarios that may give rise to other claims under the common law. This being said, a RICO claim can be based upon violations of the criminal mail and wire fraud statutes. The mail and wire fraud statutes are very broad. Some creative lawyers have succeeded in arguing that the mail and wire fraud statutes have been violated by fact patterns that superficially appear to give rise only to claims of negligence, breach of contract, and other actions giving rise to common law rights. If a RICO claim is based only upon violations of the mail or wire fraud statutes, however, courts are likely to subject the claims to stricter scrutiny. Courts look more favorably upon RICO claims based upon true criminal behavior, such as bribery, kickbacks, extortion, obstruction of justice, and clearly criminal schemes that are advanced by the use of the mails and wires.
- RICO addresses long-term, not one-shot, criminal activity. Not only must a RICO claim be based upon criminal activity, but the criminal acts must constitute a "pattern" of criminal activity. A single criminal act, short-term criminal conduct, or criminal actions that bear no relationship to each other will not give rise to a RICO claim. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that criminal actions constitute a "pattern" only if they are related and continuous. In order to be "related," the criminal acts must involve the same victims, have the same methods of commission, involve the same participants, or be related in some other fashion. A pattern may be sufficiently continuous if the criminal actions occurred over a substantial period of time or posed a threat of indefinite duration. The former patterns are referred to as closed-ended patterns; the latter patterns are referred to as open-ended patterns. Accordingly, even if you have been injured by a criminal act, you will not have a RICO claim unless that criminal act is part of a larger pattern of criminal activity.
- Your claim may be barred by the statute of limitations if you discovered or reasonably should have discovered your injury four or more years ago. Many people are mistaken that civil RICO claims are not subject to a statute of limitations. True, Congress failed to include a statute of limitations when it passed the RICO Act, but the United States Supreme Court has remedied that oversight and imposed a four-year statute of limitations on all civil RICO claims. Civil Rico's statute of limitations begins to run when the victim discovers or reasonably should have discovered its injury. Many people also believe that the statute of limitations is reset every time a new criminal act is committed - this is not true. Once a victim is aware or should be aware of its injury, the victim has four years to discover the remaining elements of its claim and bring suit. A victim cannot sit on its rights and refrain from filing suit in the face of known injuries. That being said, however, there are several equitable doctrines that may toll or suspend the running of the statute of limitations. If a defendant fraudulently conceals facts that are essential to the victim's ability to purse its rights, the running of the statute of limitations may be tolled. In addition, acts of duress, such as "if you sue me, I'll kill you," may toll the running of the statute of limitations. All tolling doctrines are based upon whether it is fair, under the circumstances, to bar the victim's claims on the basis of the running of the statute of limitations. Also, if a defendant engages in a new pattern of rackeeting, that causes new and independent injuries, a new limitations period may apply to those new and independent injuries.
Of course, these are merely general considerations. Consult with an attorney to determine whether the facts of your particular case give rise to a RICO claim.
Contents
- Enterprise
- Enterprise / Racketeering Activity Distinction
- Person / Enterprise Distinction
- An Enterprise Engaged in or Affecting Interstate Commerce
- Defendants' Operation or Management of the Enterprise
- The Pattern
- Relatedness
- Continuity
- Multiple Schemes and the Pattern
- Racketeering Activity
- Mail and Wire Fraud
- Bank Fraud
- Extortion
- The Issue of Consent
- Extortion under Color Of Official Right
- Extortion vs. Legitimate Exercise of Government Power
- Other Predicate Acts Related to Extortion
- Civil Remedies under Section 1964(c)
- Injured "by reason of" a Violation of Section 1962
- Intervening Factors
- Non-predicate Acts
- Independent Contributing Factors
- Directly Injured Third-party Victims
- Mail and Wire Fraud - Reasonable Reliance
- Injury to Business or Property
- SECTION 1962(a) & (b) CLAIMS
- Association-in-Fact Enterprises Under Sections 1962(a) & (b)
- Injury "by reason of" a Section 1962(a) Violation
- Injury "by reason of" a Section 1962(b) Violation
- CONSPIRACIES TO VIOLATE RICO - SECTION 1962(d)
- RICO'S STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS
- Limitations Period
- Accrual of a Civil RICO Claim
- Early Conflicting Accrual Rules
- The Supreme Court's Effort to Resolve the Conflict
- Tolling Doctrines
- New and Independent Injuries
- CONCLUSION: KEY CONCEPTS OF RICO JURISPRUDENCE
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Elsewhere
When you say "poopy" what exactly are you referring too Sir?
It just means that someone dropped a Baby Ruth in the pool.... don't worry... the chlorine keeps it safe to eat... so just grab'em and enjoy!
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Odrade
Hmmm, no crime, no time. BUT I think it's a crime that I can get a better rate at a non-approved Marriott by using the internet pricing, than the prices on the list. Some of those hotels are really shitty too. Last year (last convention we will ever attend-YAY!) we didn't decide which one we were attending until a few weeks before when the list had already "expired." We got online to find a hotel and the prices we got were consistently $10-20/night less.
Pissed me off too, because what about the poor JWs who can't really afford 3-4 nights in a hotel with their family who could save some $$ AND stay in a not-shitty hotel if they just ignored the list. Better yet...take a REAL vacation!
O
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Insomniac
OK, here's a cool reversal of the discount room thing:
This woman I used to work with was an inactive JW. Her mom used to bring her the literature, so she knew when all the assemblies were. So, she and her hubby (a 7th day Adventist) would just check the list when they wanted to go on a weekend getaway, then call the hotel and say she was a witness, in order to get the discount. No, they did not attend the assembly.
But it always made me wonder why someone would choose to stay in a building full of dubs in order to save, what, like ten bucks? Especially when she would run into people she knew, she said it was always uncomfortable, but she said she got a kick out of it anyway. Huh, maybe that's where all the rooms went!
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Scully
I always wondered how members of the GB could afford to stay in the nicest hotels when they went to conventions all over the world to give public talks, on their $90/month stipend.
Meanwhile my parents had to pinch pennies every single day in order to be able to afford to stay at crappy "approved list hotels" (we once stayed at a motel that featured dead - squished - moths on the walls and food from previous guests under the beds) so we wouldn't miss out on all that Fine Spiritual Food? at the District Convention. The competition to get into hotels close to the convention venue was fierce among the R&F, but strangely enough, all the elders managed to get reservations when Joe and Jane Publisher were told that there were no rooms left at those same hotels right after the list was made available at the Thursday night meeting.
I'm so glad I never have to do that again!
Love, Scully
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got my forty homey?
This whole thing almost sounds as when Jesus came to earth and large sums of money were made by the Pharisees by making Jews from the world (world was much smaller then today) to have to purchase animals for sacrifices, pay annual temple taxes, take a series of "ritual baths" before entering the temple to worship and offer all kinds of money exchangers at the temple for traveling Jews convienience!
Religon then and today is nothing but a polictical, business machine with that have totally lost sight of thier goal.
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wednesday
Actually i have had two (2) bad experiences with Days Inn in the last 2 years, and i wouldn't stay at their crappy place anyhow. one time the room we stayed in had a smoke detector that had been dismantled(so somone could smoke) it had no amenites, and the next time we booked through hotel.com and b/c we were a few minutes late cancelling, they made us pay for the nijght and were free to use the room anyhow. So now Hotel.com and Days Innn are on my boycott list.
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gitasatsangha
My ex and I got a Day's Inn at this one convention, and the room was positively nasty. We didn't stay. Went to the local Marriot which was not on the list, but was heavenly by comparison. Got a few bad looks the next day when people asked whree we were staying. By day three a lot of them had moved over to Marriott. If the society ain't racketeering, then they need to hire the good folks at hotwire.com to get them better deals.