Court Opinion

ID: 9747028
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 14:53:25.772445+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:19.423607
License: Public Domain

SIMS, J.
I concur in Justice Sparks’s scholarly opinion.
I write separately to urge our Supreme Court to reconsider its holding in Cianci v. Superior Court (1985) 40 Cal.3d 903 [221 Cal.Rptr. 575, 710 P.2d 375] which voluntarily assumed state court jurisdiction over RICO actions. (Id. at p. 910.)
As this case well illustrates, RICO is a judicial nightmare. The vagueness of RICO’s language has led to vast divisions of authority in the federal courts, and these divisions are dumped upon California courts compelled to adjudicate RICO claims. In performing that adjudication (as this case shows), California courts are forced to apply both federal substantive and procedural law. For all the reasons set forth in Justice Lucas’s dissent in Cianci (40 Cal.3d at p. 925), California’s overtaxed courts are ill-equipped to deal with RICO. Moreover, the doors of the federal district courts remain open to any California citizens wishing to press RICO claims.
The time to stop our long day’s journey into the RICO nightmare is now. Our Supreme Court should reconsider Cianci and should decline state court jurisdiction over RICO claims.
The petition of real parties in interest for review by the Supreme Court was denied June 1, 1995.