Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 586

529US2

Unit: $U51

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Cite as: 529 U. S. 494 (2000)

511

Stevens, J., dissenting

recognize that, at least in certain instances, the agreement
itself can give rise to liability for civil conspiracy.6 And of
the nine cases cited in which liability is rejected for failure
to state a cause of action, four are the opinions of intermedi-
ate state courts and one is the three-page opinion of a Fed-
eral District Court—hardly strong evidence of the “widely
accepted” premise on which the Court relies. Ante, at 501.
Thus, the cases cited by the Court do not at all place its con-
clusion on any ﬁrm footing.

Nevertheless, based on its understanding of the common
law, the Court concludes that “a RICO conspiracy plaintiff
[must] allege injury from an act that is analogous to an ‘ac[t]
of a tortious character.’ ” Ante, at 505. Even assuming
that statement is correct, though, it is not at all clear to me
why an overt act that “injure[s]” a person “in his business
or property” (as § 1964(c) requires) would not be “analogous
to an ‘ac[t] of a tortious character’ ” simply because the overt
act is not listed in § 1961(1). Nor do I understand why the

stam v. Welch, 705 F. 2d 472, 487 (CADC 1983) (“[A] conspiracy requires:
an agreement to do an unlawful act or a lawful act in an unlawful manner;
an overt act in furtherance of the agreement by someone participating in
it; and injury caused by the act”).

6 See Cohen v. Bowdoin, 288 A. 2d 106, 110, n. 4 (Me. 1972) (“We are
aware that in particular extraordinary circumstances there has been rec-
ognized the existence of a separate self-sufﬁcient and independent tort of
‘conspiracy,’ as a substantive basis of civil liability”); Halberstam, 705
F. 2d, at 477, n. 7; W. Prosser, Law of Torts § 46, p. 293 (4th ed. 1971) (“[I]t
now seems generally agreed . . . that there are certain types of conduct,
such as boycotts, in which the element of combination adds such a power
of coercion, undue inﬂuence or restraint of trade, that it makes unlawful
acts which one man alone might legitimately do.
It is perhaps pointless
to debate whether in such a case the combination or conspiracy becomes
itself the tort, or whether it merely gives a tortious character to the acts
done in furtherance of it. On either basis, it is the determining factor in
liability”). See also Snipes v. West Flagler Kennel Club, Inc., 105 So. 2d
164, 165–167, and n. 1 (Fla. 1958), where the court upheld liability exclu-
sively on precisely that premise.