Court Opinion

ID: 9475565
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:31:16.584171+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:47.356803
License: Public Domain

RIPPLE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Several centuries from now, when the archeologists have unearthed a copy of the Federal Reporter and turned it over to the legal historians for study and analysis, our descendants will indeed be puzzled to discover that a society in which judicial resources were such a scarce “commodity” expended so much of that “commodity” searching its state codes for “analogous” limitation periods. I doubt very much that, at least in this regard, our priorities will command much admiration.
Fixing the statute of limitation for a particular cause of action is a legislative function. Indeed, it is not a particularly difficult or complex legislative function. In most circumstances, it can be handled in a sentence. Yet, in a significant number of statutory schemes of nationwide application, Congress has failed to fulfill this basic responsibility and has left the courts to spend hundreds of hours — and thousands of dollars in government money — searching for a substitute solution.1 Meanwhile, justice is delayed, not only in the cases in which limitation issues arise but also in the many cases, often raising far more serious questions, which must wait while this tedious process takes place.
Congress had an opportunity to settle the limitations issue in civil RICO2 but it did not take the time to do so. Therefore, after much litigation and conflicting decisions among the district courts,3 this court, like its sister circuits, must now undertake this difficult and necessarily imprecise task.4
Given the difficulty of the court’s task and the imprecision which it necessarily entails, I am reluctant to part company from my brothers in their conscientious attempt to reach a principled result. This reluctance is reinforced by the thoughtful efforts of a good many district judges who, after giving the matter considerable thought, concur with the majority. Nevertheless, after studying the majority opinion and its precursors from the district courts, I must conclude that the judges on several of our sister circuits have made a more compelling case. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
The court quite properly notes that, when confronted with the difficult task of choosing the most analogous state statute of limitations, the appropriate approach is to “characterize the essence of the federal claim in the instant case and select the most appropriate state statute of limitations given this characterization.” Maj.Op. at 743 (citing Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 1943, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985)). However, when it turns to that task, instead of focusing on the “essence” of the civil RICO cause of action, the court focuses only on the remedy provided by that cause of action.
This methodological lapse is, I respectfully suggest, at least partially attributable to the court’s over-reliance on the analogy of RICO to the Clayton Act. As this court has noted just recently, the references to *748the antitrust laws in the legislative debates on RICO dealt basically with the establishing of the treble damages remedy. Illinois Dep’t of Revenue v. Phillips, 771 F.2d 312, 315 (7th Cir.1985); see also Schacht v. Brown, 711 F.2d 1343, 1358 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 1002, 104 S.Ct. 508, 78 L.Ed.2d 698 (1983). The antitrust laws and civil RICO statutes do not have the same purpose. Although RICO and the Clayton Act both require injury to business or property for standing to sue, there is little overlap between the types of conduct each prohibits.5 The RICO statute is a sui gen-eris exercise of the Congress’ legislative power aimed at curtailing a broad spectrum of dishonesty and corruption in business and government. In selecting a statute of limitations, that broad purpose — and the myriad of schemes which fall within it— must be the focus of the court’s attention.
Equally disturbing is the court’s characterization of RICO as no more than a federal surcharge against conduct already forbidden under state law. As the ABA Task Force Report noted, “RICO is manifestly directed towards activities that go beyond the mere commission of predicate of-fenses_” Report of the Ad Hoc Civil RICO Task Force, 1985 A.B.A. Sec. Corp. Banking & Bus.L.Rep. 390-91. RICO was designed to protect a distinct federal concern — the harm inflicted on business or government by a pattern of illegal activity.6 The statute is an explicit recognition that illegal conduct of a continuing nature presents a special threat. Indeed, it was a realization “that civil RICO is truly sui generis and that particular claims cannot be readily analogized to causes of action known at common law ...” that led the Third Circuit to conclude that RICO actions in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania should be governed by that state’s “residual ‘catchall’ statute of limitations for actions, primarily based on statute, that are not governed by any more specific period of limitations.” Malley-Duff & Assoc., Inc. v. Crown Life Ins. Co., 792 F.2d 341, 352, 353 (3d Cir.1986); accord Compton v. Ide, 732 F.2d 1429, 1433 (9th Cir.1984) (applying the California three-year period for actions based on statute); see also Durante Bros. & Sons, Inc. v. Flushing Nat’l Bank, 755 F.2d 239, 249 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct, 3530, 87 L.Ed.2d 654 (1985).7
In my view, the approach of the Third Circuit in Malley-Duff is the most realistic approach to the problem of selecting an appropriate statute of limitations for civil RICO actions. Rather than grounding the *749analysis in an analogy to another statutory cause of action aimed at a very different evil — an analogy destined to limp — it recognizes civil RICO as a unique statutory cause of action designed to curb a unique danger. Accordingly, I would apply the Illinois five-year period for “all civil actions not otherwise provided for.” This phrase, I respectfully suggest, describes accurately civil RICO. It is also of sufficient length to provide ample opportunity for the putative litigant to file a complaint which intelligently describes the precise nature and extent of his injuries. It is not at all certain, I suggest, that the two-year period adopted by the court today will afford all litigants who might invoke the protection of civil RICO ample time to accomplish that feat.
This court’s deviation from the course of decision emerging in the other circuits has one salutary aspect. Perhaps the Congress will now complete its legislative work and permit the courts to use their time more effectively by applying rather than making law.8

. Dissenting from denial of certiorari in Preuit & Mauldin v. Jones, — U.S. -, 106 S.Ct. 893, 895 n. 3, 88 L.Ed.2d 926 (1986), Justice White similarly suggested that the Congress ought to extricate the courts from the same exercise with respect to limitations in section 1983 actions. See generally Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985).

. For a description of the Congress’ consideration of the statute of limitation issue, see State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Estate of Caton, 540 F.Supp. 673, 684 (N.D.Ind.1982).

. See Maj.Op. at 744-745.

. As the ABA Task Force Report noted:
[T]he law regarding the applicable statute of limitations for Civil RICO claims is confused, inconsistent, and unpredictable. The current approach is virtually guaranteed to incite complex and expensive litigation over what should be a straight-forward matter. In addition to disputes over the proper characterization of the RICO claim, which indeed may vary depending on whether it is governed by federal or state law, the current approach raises the possibility of further conflicts over the appropriate choice of law in multistate factual situations, (footnotes omitted)
Report of the Ad Hoc Civil RICO Task Force, 1985 A.B.A. Sec. Corp. Banking & Bus.L.Rep. 391-92 [hereafter cited as ABA Task Force Report].

. For the same reasons, it would be inappropriate to implement the methodology of DelCostello v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 462 U.S. 151, 172, 103 S.Ct. 2281, 2294, 76 L.Ed.2d 476 (1983) and "turn away from state law” in favor of the four-year statute of limitations in the Clayton Act. "[S]tate law remains the norm for borrowing limitations periods,” id. at 171, 103 S.Ct. at 2294, and the substantial differences in the purposes of the two statutes and in the conduct they proscribe hardly justifies deviation from the norm. Indeed, since Congress consciously incorporated some features of the Clayton Act in enacting RICO but failed to use the same statute of limitations, this court should be particularly hesitant to take that step. See ABA Task Force Report at 392. But see A.J. Cunningham Packing Corp. v. Congress Financial Corp., 792 F.2d 330, 337-341 (3d Cir.1986) (Sloviter, J., concurring).

. As the Supreme Court noted in United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 586, 101 S.Ct. 2524, 2530, 69 L.Ed.2d 246 (1981), “Congress was well aware that it was entering a new domain of federal involvement through the enactment of this measure.” Indeed, in Sedima, S.P.R.L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U.S. 479, 105 S.Ct. 3275, 87 L.Ed.2d 346 (1985), the Supreme Court emphasized the need for "continuity plus relationship," in establishing a "pattern of racketeering activity.” Id. at 3285 n. 14. Of course, once the "pattern" is established, the plaintiff may recover for "the harm caused by predicate acts sufficiently related to constitute a pattern, for the essence of the violation is the commission of those acts in connection with the conduct of an enterprise.” Id. at 3286.

.Durante Bros. & Sons, Inc. v. Flushing Nat’l Bank, 755 F.2d 239 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 105 S.Ct. 3530, 87 L.Ed.2d 654 (1985), was cited by the Third Circuit in Malley-Duff & Assoc., Inc. v. Crown Life Ins. Co., 792 F.2d 341, 347-348 (3d Cir.1986), as authority for the proposition that a single statute of limitations should govern all civil RICO actions. Malley-Duff, 792 F.2d at 347-348 (N.Y.Civ.Prac.L. & R. 214(2) (McKinney Supp. 1983-1984)) (governing actions to enforce a liability created by statute). However, in Bankers Trust v. Feldesman, 65 *749B.R. 470 (S.D.N.Y.1986), the court held that Durante could not be read as establishing such a general rule. Nonetheless, the district court in Bankers Trust did adopt such a rule.

. See ABA Task Force Report at 393.