Opinion ID: 748603
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Professional Reputation Damage

Text: 32 Khurana pleaded injury proximately resulting from the defendants' violations of § 1962(b) and § 1962(c) when he asserted the injury of business reputation harm. For § 1962(b) and § 1962(c) violations, the injurious conduct must be racketeering acts as listed in § 1961(1). According to Khurana's pleadings, he detrimentally relied on the appellees' misrepresentations as to the legitimacy of the hospital's operations in taking his position with the hospital. Such reliance on a predicate fraud act can indicate the necessary proximate relationship between the injury asserted and the injurious conduct. See Chisolm v. TransSo. Fin. Corp., 95 F.3d 331, 337 (4th Cir.1996) (citing cases); Standardbred, 985 F.2d at 104. In Standardbred, the defendants acquired a race track financed by municipal bonds. In the application for the bonds, the defendants stated an intent to operate the race track and assured the plaintiffs of such as well. The defendants subsequently stopped racing. The Second Circuit held that the plaintiffs had § 1964(c) standing because in the fraudulently induced belief that the racing would continue, they purchased, relocated and reconstructed capital equipment for use at the track and designed their purchases and training of horses with the intent to race them at the track. Khurana similarly relocated himself and his medical practice to this hospital, a significant financial and professional decision, allegedly as a result of the appellees' misrepresentations as to the legitimacy of the hospital's operations. 33 In addition, the damage to Khurana's professional reputation was a foreseeable result of the various racketeering acts of wire and mail fraud. See discussion supra Part II.C. Khurana, as the hospital's director, was essentially the figurehead of a fraud-ridden, now defunct institution. The act of fraudulently hiring him can be a proximate cause of any damage that his professional reputation has suffered. Damage to his professional reputation is easily seen as a natural outgrowth of such an employment association. As the predicate acts were pleaded as responsible for Khurana's acceptance of his employment with River Region, we find that the pleadings presented the claim of necessary proximate cause for Khurana's standing for this claim. See Cox v. Adm'r U.S. Steel & Carnegie, 17 F.3d 1386, 1399 (11th Cir.1994) (finding proximate cause where defendants' conduct was substantially responsible for claimed injuries); see also generally Prosser & Keeton on Torts § 41, p. 268 (discussing substantial responsibility and proximate cause). 34