A 1980s law originally aimed mainly at organized crime can be used in domestic disputes, the Georgia Supreme Court clarified in a ruling involving a legal clash between former spouses.
The decision last week reversed the state Court of Appeals, which had ruled that the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, did not apply to domestic disputes.
Legal experts were not surprised by the high court’s decision but said it preserves a powerful legal tool that could lead to more respect for civil proceedings, since the racketeering law enhances the consequences for playing fast and loose with facts and rules.
“So many of the predicate crimes to satisfy the RICO statute routinely occur in what the Court of Appeals is calling ‘garden variety domestic cases’,” said Tanya Washington, a Georgia State University law professor. “Forgery and fraudulent communications and engaging with other people for them to testify a certain way. All of those sorts of things happen in family law cases.”
If a party is found to have violated some of the 43 categories of offenses listed under the racketeering law, it can lead to severe financial penalties, she said, or even a criminal investigation: “It makes it easier for a prosecutor to pick up the RICO claim and follow the breadcrumbs.”
The unanimous Supreme Court opinion issued June 30 nullified an appellate decision that said it would be “absurd” and “in defiance of common sense and sound reasoning” to apply the RICO Act “to any garden-variety domestic dispute.”
The appeals court had affirmed a decision in a Paulding County Superior Court lawsuit brought by Jennifer Warner against her ex-husband, Jeffrey Espitia, and his fiancée, Krystal Kriewaldt.
Warner invoked the RICO Act after the Cobb County Superior Court ruled against Espitia in a prior lawsuit. He had sued to recover child support from her that he claimed was in arrears.
Their two children lived with him, and he asserted that she had failed to make her monthly $550 payments.
But he admitted in court that he had presented incorrect information and was uncertain about the arrears, saying it was an inadvertent error. He said he had trusted Kriewaldt’s calculations.
The Cobb court determined Espitia’s claims were “substantially frivolous, substantially groundless, and substantially vexatious,” finding that he had gone to court to harass and intimidate his ex-wife.
Armed with that decision, Warner sued in Paulding, invoking the RICO Act.
The Paulding court ruled against her, so she appealed. The appeals court also decided against her, ruling that her underlying claims against her ex-husband were not a matter for the court to consider because the RICO Act did not apply. The appeals court described her lawsuit as “yet another volley in the parties’ long-running domestic dispute,” adding that nothing in the RICO Act suggests it “may be warped so far beyond its original purpose of combating organized crime to apply to a festering domestic feud.”