UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE

In respondents' private civil action brought under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-1968, they alleged that petitioner bank and several of its officers had fraudulently charged excessive interest rates on loans to respondents, and that the scheme to defraud, which was carried on through the mails, violated § 1962(c), in that the mailings constituted a pattern of racketeering activity by means of which petitioners conducted, or participated in the conduct of, the bank. The only injuries alleged were the excessive interest charges themselves. The District Court dismissed on the ground that the complaint did not state a claim, but the Court of Appeals reversed in relevant part.

Held:

1. In their brief and at oral argument, petitioners raised the issue -- not raised or addressed below and not included in the question presented by their petition for certiorari -- that respondents' complaint did not adequately allege a violation of § 1962(c) because they had not shown that the enterprise was "conducted" through a pattern of racketeering activity. The issue will not be considered, in view of this Court's Rule 21.1(a) that only the question set forth in the petition for certiorari or fairly included therein will be considered.

2. There is no merit to petitioners' argument that respondents' injury must flow not from the predicate offenses, prescribed in the statute, but from the fact that they were performed as part of the conduct of an enterprise. That argument is a variation on the "racketeering injury" concept rejected in Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., ante p. 473 U. S. 479.

747 F.2d 384, affirmed. clubjuris

Page 473 U. S. 607