Opinion ID: 794551
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Fair Market Value Determinations Will Generally Best Serve the MVRA's Compensatory Purpose

Text: 37 In determining the appropriate measure of value for property relevant to restitution, a district court must consider that the purpose of restitution is essentially compensatory: to restore a victim, to the extent money can do so, to the position he occupied before sustaining injury. See Hughey v. United States, 495 U.S. 411, 416, 110 S.Ct. 1979, 109 L.Ed.2d 408 (1990) (observing that the meaning of `restitution' is restoring someone to a position he occupied before a particular event); United States v. Coriaty, 300 F.3d 244, 253 (2d Cir.2002) (holding that statutory focus of the MVRA is upon making victims whole). Because the MVRA mandates that restitution be ordered to crime victims for the full amount of losses caused by a defendant's criminal conduct, see 18 U.S.C. § 3664(f)(1)(A); United States v. Reifler, 446 F.3d at 134 (remanding where calculation errors violated the MVRA requirement that the order [of] restitution award restitution in the full amount of the victims' losses), it can fairly be said that the primary and overarching purpose of the MVRA is to make victims of crime whole, to fully compensate these victims for their losses and to restore these victims to their original state of well-being. United States v. Simmonds, 235 F.3d at 831. 38 In most circumstances, fair market value will be the measure most apt to serve this statutory purpose. Fair market value is defined as the price that a seller is willing to accept and a buyer is willing to pay on the open market and in an arm's-length transaction. Black's Law Dictionary 1587 (8th ed.2004); see also Gillespie v. United States, 23 F.3d 36, 40 (2d Cir. 1994) (defining fair market value as `the price at which the property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller') (quoting United States v. Cartwright, 411 U.S. 546, 551, 93 S.Ct. 1713, 36 L.Ed.2d 528 (1973)); Restatement of Restitution § 151 cmt. b (1937) (defining value of property acquired by consciously tortious conduct as the amount for which it could be exchanged if there were an open market with a wide opportunity for buyers). Because this price reflects the value of property's greatest economic use, it generally provides the most reliable measure of both the full loss sustained by a victim when his property is damaged, lost, or destroyed, and the degree to which that loss is mitigated by recouped property. 39