For many years after its passage, civil litigants predominantly ignored Title
IX of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970, also known as the Racketeer
Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Originally enacted as a
result of multiple investigations into the organized crime epidemic of the midtwentieth century, RICO’s original purpose was to help the government eradicate criminal enterprises from infiltrating legitimate businesses. Nevertheless, in the early 1980s, litigants transformed RICO into a weapon for plaintiffs in civil suits, paving the way for future complainants to use RICO’s
broad language in creative ways.
