Opinion ID: 78049
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Particularized Pleading

Text: Renta next argues the case should be dismissed, or the judgment remitted, for failure to plead the predicate acts of fraud with particularity, as the verdict was based on numerous fraudulent promissory notes not pleaded in the complaint. When a RICO claim is based on predicate acts involving fraud, those predicate acts must be pleaded with particularity, in accordance with Fed.R.Civ.P. 9(b). See, e.g., Ambrosia Coal & Const. Co. v. Pages Morales, 482 F.3d 1309, 1316-17 (11th Cir.2007); see also 5 Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1251.1. We now hold that RICO predicate acts not sounding in fraud need not necessarily be pleaded with the particularity required by Fed.R.Civ.P. 9(b). When fraud is pleaded as an alternative claim, the non-fraud claims in the complaint need not be pleaded with particularity unless the same misrepresentation forms the basis of both the fraud and non-fraud claim. Wagner v. First Horizon Pharmaceutical Corp., 464 F.3d 1273, 1277-78 (11th Cir. 2006) (requiring particularized pleading when the same misrepresentation supports fraud claims under Rule 10b-5 and nonfraud claims under § 11 of the Securities Exchange Act). The rule should be the same when the alternative theory of the case is a predicate act rather than an independent claim. Applied here, these principles suggest that the transactions underlying the verdict need not have been pleaded with particularity because the non-fraud RICO predicate statutes do not require proof of a misrepresentation. The verdict was based on $48.5 million in wire transfers to Bankinvest, Interduty, and Groupwide Florida, and the $10.5 million in currency exchange transfers to Wadeville. There was a sufficient evidentiary basis to conclude that these transfers by themselves violated 18 U.S.C. § 2314-15, regardless of whether the related promissory notes or transfer requests would also support a wire fraud claim. Because proving a violation of the stolen property statutes does not require proof of a misrepresentation, [17] and because the evidence was sufficient to sustain the verdict based on these non-fraud predicate acts, no error has been shown.