RICO and the church

[Richards, Edward P.]

 >  RICO has no scienter requirements.  This will be interesting. 
 
But RICO does have a criminal enterprise requirement that could be difficult to establish in some circuits.  There were news reports that RICO did not have a statute of limitations.  I think it only extends back 10 years, but I will defer to anyone who has looked at RICO lately.  The BIG problem for plaintiff's under RICO is that you cannot get damages for personal injuries.  This has been the problem in the health care RICO cases against the HMOs.  RICO does trump ERISA, but damages are limited to claims that patients were cheated of their premiums by substandard care.  In the church context, I am not sure where I see any damages under RICO.
 
Ed
 
Edward P. Richards
Executive Director - Center for Public Health Law
The Ruby M. Hulen/UMKC Professor of Law
University of Missouri Kansas City
(816)235-2370 Fax (816)235-5276
richardse at umkc.edu
http://biotech.law.umkc.edu 

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