Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/boundvolumes/529bv.pdf
Page Number: 583

529US2

Unit: $U51

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508

BECK v. PRUPIS

Stevens, J., dissenting

liability, concerns the latter. Section 1964(c) requires a per-
son to be “injured in his business or property” by a violation
before bringing an action for damages. And because that
kind of injury only results from some form of overt act in
furtherance of the conspiracy, liability under § 1964(c) natu-
rally requires injury via an overt act.2 But there is nothing
in either § 1962(d) or § 1964(c) requiring the overt act to be a
racketeering activity as deﬁned in § 1961(1).3

The Court’s central premise is that common-law civil con-
spiracy cases support the notion that liability cannot be im-
posed unless the overt act that furthered the conspiracy and
harmed the plaintiff was a particular kind of overt act,
namely, an act of a tortious character. But the cases cited
by the Court do not support that point. First, no case cited
by the majority actually parallels the Court’s premise. That
is, no case involved a situation in which (a) there was an
illegal agreement, (b) there was an injury to the plaintiff
proximately caused by an overt act in furtherance of that
agreement, but (c) there was a refusal to impose civil liability
because the overt act was not itself tortious.

Of the dozen cases cited by the Court, ante, at 501–503,
half of them rejected liability because they did not satisfy
condition (a) above, i. e., there was either no agreement or
nothing illegal about the agreement that was made. See
Satin v. Satin, 69 App. Div. 2d 761, 762, 414 N. Y. S. 2d 570
(1979) (Memorandum Decision) (“Here, the only such wrong-
ful action is pleaded against [one defendant] alone. . . . In any
event, it is doubtful that there could here be a conspiracy
between this individual and his own corporation”); Mills v.
Hansell, 378 F. 2d 53, 54 (CA5 1967) (per curiam) (“[W]e
feel that the able trial judge correctly concluded that . . .

2 Of course, under Holmes v. Securities Investor Protection Corpora-
tion, 503 U. S. 258, 268 (1992), the overt act must be the proximate cause
of the plaintiff ’s injury.

3 “[R]acketeering activity” is deﬁned in § 1961(1) to include a slew of

state and federal crimes such as murder, bribery, arson, and extortion.