Opinion ID: 74318
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Georgia’s RICO Statute

Text: Against this background, we now examine whether the attorneys’ fees recoverable under Georgia’s RICO statute, Ga. Code. Ann. § 16-14-6(c), may be aggregated to satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement. As in Tapscott and Davis, this Court’s inquiry focuses on whether an attorneys’ fee award under the applicable state law represents a single title or right in which all plaintiffs have a 3 Davis was not decided until July 26, 1999, which was after the learned district judge’s order, dated September 30, 1998, denying the motion to remand and dismissing this case. 10 common and undivided interest or a separate and distinct claim of each plaintiff. To determine this, we look to Georgia law and the nature and purpose of the attorneys’ fees award under Georgia’s RICO statute. Georgia’s RICO statute provides that “any person who is injured” shall recover attorneys’ fees as follows : Any person who is injured by reason of any violation of Code Section 16-14-4 shall have a cause of action for three times the actual damages sustained and, where appropriate, punitive damages. Such person shall also recover attorneys’ fees in the trial and appellate courts and costs of investigation and litigation reasonably incurred. The defendant or any injured person may demand a trial by jury in any civil action brought pursuant to this Code section. Ga. Code. Ann. § 16-14-6(c). This statute gives each individual plaintiff in a putative class the right to recover attorneys’ fees in the case. Thus, the plain language of section 16-14-6(c) makes it clear that the statutory award of attorneys’ fees represents a separate and distinct interest awarded to compensate each injured plaintiff individually.4 4 Defendants contend that we should adopt the analysis of the Fifth Circuit in In re Abbot Laboratories, 51 F.3d 524 (5th Cir. 1995) and permit the aggregation of attorneys’ fees for jurisdictional purposes in this case. Defendants reliance on In re Abbot Laboratories is unavailing. In Abbot, the court aggregated attorneys’ fees for jurisdictional purposes because the Louisiana statute in question specifically authorized awards of attorneys’ fees to the “class representative.” See In re Abbot Laboratories, 51 F.3d at 526 (“The plain text of the first sentence of [Article] 595 awards the fees to the ‘representative parties.’”). In contrast, Georgia’s RICO statute does not contain this class language but refers to the individual person who is injured. 11 Similarly, Georgia case law provides that the purpose and nature of statutory awards of attorneys’ fees under Georgia law is to compensate the individual injured plaintiff. In City of Warner Robins v. Holt, 470 S.E.2d 238 (Ga. App. 1996), the Georgia Court of Appeals expressly stated that the purpose of statutory attorneys’ fees is not to punish or penalize a defendant but to compensate the injured party, as follows: Though awards of litigation expenses and attorney fees may often have a somewhat punitive effect on the party against whom they are awarded, to punish or penalize is not their purpose. Rather, in those limited circumstances under which such awards are authorized by law, the purpose is to compensate an injured party, in order that such parties are not further injured by the cost incurred as a result of the necessity of seeking legal redress for their legitimate grievances. City of Warner Robins, 470 S.E.2d at 240. See also F.N. Roberts Pest Control Co. v. McDonald, 208 S.E.2d 13, 16 (Ga. App. 1974); Busbee v. Sellers, 29 S.E.2d 710, 711-12 (Ga. App. 1944). More specifically, the Georgia Supreme Court has stated that the purpose of the award of attorneys’ fees under Georgia’s RICO statute is to compensate civil plaintiffs. Dee v. Sweet, 489 S.E.2d 823, 825 (Ga. 1997). In Dee, the Georgia Supreme Court court noted that section 16-14-6(c) “promotes [the] legislative purpose [of the Georgia RICO statute] in that it provides compensation to civil plaintiffs who have successfully established that they have been injured by a defendant’s RICO violations by including in the 12 amount recoverable those attorney fees and costs of investigation and litigation reasonably incurred by plaintiffs in the trial and appellate courts.” Id. After review, we hold that each Plaintiff’s share of the attorneys’ fees recoverable under Georgia’s RICO statute may not be aggregated to satisfy the amount-in-controversy requirement because under Georgia law each individual Plaintiff has a separate and distinct statutory right or claim to recover those attorneys’ fees, and Georgia law provides that those fees are to compensate the injured Plaintiff. The Plaintiffs here are joining to enforce their individual rights to recover attorneys’ fees as part of their compensatory damages; they are not joining to enforce a single right in which they have a common and undivided interest and are not seeking to deduct sums as attorneys’ fees from a common fund. Punitive damages in Tapscott furthered the collective interest in deterrence and punishment; in contrast, the purpose of attorneys’ fee awards under Georgia’s RICO statute law is to compensate the injured party. Therefore, the attorneys’ fees here may not be aggregated. See Davis, 182 F.3d at 796 (“When, as here, the damages claimed are purely compensatory, the attorney’ fees are no more aggregable than the compensatory damages would be.”). In light of this holding, Defendants’ second argument that Plaintiffs failed to exhaust administrative remedies is rendered moot. Thus we do not address this 13 issue.