Opinion ID: 751836
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Misappropriation of Funds Claims

Text: Camelio claims that nine of the fourteen individual defendants misappropriated union funds in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 501(c) by taking such funds for personal use and causing union money to be paid for legal services that were never rendered. A violation of § 501(c) qualifies as a predicate racketeering act under RICO. See 18 U.S.C.A. § 1961(1). However, even if we assume that Camelio has sufficiently alleged that defendants violated § 501(c), these violations cannot satisfy RICO's causation requirement because the connection between the violations and Camelio's injuries is insufficiently close to say that one proximately caused the other. See Miranda, 948 F.2d at 47 (bribery not cause of plaintiff's job loss); Pujol v. Shearson/American Express, Inc., 829 F.2d 1201, 1205 (mail and wire fraud not proximate cause of plaintiff's job loss); Nodine, 819 F.2d at 349 (mail and wire fraud not cause of plaintiff's job loss). In other words, even if defendants did violate § 501(c) by stealing union funds, their misappropriations were too far removed from Camelio's loss of his job and his union membership to serve as the proximate cause of his injuries.