Court Opinion

ID: 9567064
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:48:02.031897+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:57.471921
License: Public Domain

POPE, Presiding Judge,
concurring specially.
I concur specially with Divisions 2 and 3. Although I agree that summary judgment was properly granted on Mullen’s RICO claim, I differ from the majority’s analysis in reaching that conclusion.
The superior court granted summary judgment on Mullen’s RICO claim, finding that it lacked the requisite predicate acts for a RICO claim. OCGA § 16-14-3 (8) defines “pattern of racketeering activity” for purposes of a RICO claim: as “engaging in at least two incidents of racketeering activity that have the same or similar intents, results, accomplices, victims, or methods of commission or otherwise are interrelated by distinguishing characteristics and are not isolated incidents. . . .” See generally Brown v. Freedman, 222 Ga. App. 213 (474 SE2d 73) (1996). The superior court found mail fraud, wire fraud and battery were the predicate acts for Mullen’s com*284plaint, and that each of these claims failed.
The court concluded that Mullen’s claims for mail and wire fraud failed because she did not present evidence to support her allegations. The court stated: “Plaintiff is required to show some evidence to support her allegations. Nonetheless, in the course of many months of litigation and upon oral hearing on her motion for summary judgment, Plaintiff has failed to come forward with any letters that would support her claims of mail fraud, any telephone bills showing long distance calls, any dates on which these letters and calls were received, or anything else that would support a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Defendants Farr and Camran engaged in the mail fraud or wire fraud as alleged.” I agree with the court’s conclusion in this regard. See generally Lau’s Corp. v. Haskins, 261 Ga. 491 (405 SE2d 474) (1991).
Thus, if Mullen’s RICO claim was to survive the motion for summary judgment, it must do so based on her claims of battery for the predicate acts. I conclude that the battery claim — and thus the RICO claim fails — because there was no evidence of two predicate acts of battery. Assuming arguendo that the December 18, 1991 surgery serves as one predicate act, the pleadings do not clearly allege a separate battery against Mullen. Although the pleadings do allege that batteries were committed against numerous other patients, Mullen presented no evidence regarding these vague allegations, and the claim must fail under OCGA § 16-14-3 (8).
Despite my conclusion that summary judgment was proper, I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the battery allegations failed because the complaint failed to properly allege the doctors’ malicious intent to commit bodily harm, as necessary for an aggravated battery claim under RICO. The majority concludes that Mullen’s claim could not survive because she essentially alleged the sci-enter necessary to a civil tort claim, not the general criminal intent necessary to prove a criminal charge under OCGA § 16-5-24. To the extent that the majority precludes all civil battery from serving as predicate acts for RICO, I disagree.
Although sometimes the intent which forms the basis for a civil suit may not rise to the level necessary to prove a criminal charge, see Avery v. Chrysler Motors Corp., 214 Ga. App. 602 (448 SE2d 737) (1994), in some instances of civil battery the intent may rise to the requisite level of criminality. OCGA § 16-5-24 provides that “[a] person commits the offense of aggravated battery when he or she maliciously causes bodily harm to another. . . .” In a civil action for battery, the intent to cause actual physical harm to another is not absolutely essential to the viability of a civil action for battery. See OCGA § 51-1-13; Hendricks v. Southern Bell Tel. &c. Co., 193 Ga. App. 264 (1) (387 SE2d 593) (1989). Nevertheless, when a civil *285defendant commits a battery under sufficiently egregious circumstances, the act may rise to the level of an aggravated battery. As in batteries in which punitive damages may be sought: “if in addition to intending to make contact of either a harmful or an insulting or provoking nature . . . [the defendant] also acted wantonly, wilfully or maliciously,” Hendricks, 193 Ga. App. at 266, a criminal action may lie. In other words, although a civil battery will not always rise to the level of an aggravated battery, in some instances such an act may rise to the requisite level of criminality.
Decided October 22, 1996.
Dickinson, Noel & Mixson, Michael K. Mixson, for appellant.
Sullivan, Hall, Booth & Smith, Henry D. Green, Jr., Walbert & Mathis, David F. Walbert, for appellees.