Court Opinion

ID: 9476672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:01:54.394478+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:26.533859
License: Public Domain

KENNEDY, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the panel’s opinion, and write separately to explain how the opinion should, in my view, be interpreted in light of other decisions in our circuit.
We hold that as to each injury the civil RICO statute of limitations period begins to run when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury which is the basis of the action. Ante at 5. This rule of separate accrual has not been announced by the Supreme Court, which specifically declined to address the issue in Agency Holding Corp. v. Malley-Duff & Assocs., — U.S. -, -, 107 S.Ct. 2759, 2767, 97 L.Ed.2d 121 (1987), nor by our circuit in a published opinion. The closest we have come was in Compton v. Ide, 732 F.2d 1429, 1433 (9th Cir.1984), in which we announced the rule that the RICO cause of action accrues when the plaintiff knows or has reason to know of the injury. Because all the relevant events occurred outside the limitations period in that case, however, see id. at 1432, we did not have occasion to decide the extent to which separate injuries sustained within the limitations period might be actionable despite the existence of some time-barred causes of action.
The basis for our holding comes not from Malley-Duff or Compton, but from Hennegan v. Pacifico Creative Serv., Inc., 787 F.2d 1299 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 279, 93 L.Ed.2d 254 (1986), and Gibson v. United States, 781 F.2d 1334 (9th Cir.1986), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 107 S.Ct. 928, 93 L.Ed.2d 979 (1987). Hennegan was an antitrust case, and Gibson was a section 1983 case; but as we have said, the same federal accrual rule applies in RICO actions as in section 1983 and antitrust actions. Compton, 732 F.2d at 1433. The rule is that a cause of action accrues when new overt acts occur within the limitations period, even if a conspiracy was formed and other acts were committed outside the limitations period. Hennegan, 787 F.2d at 1301; Gibson, 781 F.2d at 1340. A corollary rule is that damages may not be recovered for injuries sustained as a result of acts committed outside the limitations period. Hennegan, 787 F.2d at 1302; Gibson, 781 F.2d at 1340.
These rules, applied to this case, yield a clear result. The plaintiffs may recover damages for acts committed after October 4, 1981, four years before the filing of the complaint, but they may not recover damages for acts occurring before that date. As I understand it, this must be the essence of our holding.