•     In Tanedo v. East Baton Rouge Parish School Board, No. LA CV 10-01172 JAK (MLGx) (C.D.Cal. Dec. 12, 2011), teachers who allegedly were recruited from the Philippines to work in U.S. school districts by the defendants, who allegedly misrepresented the amount of the fees they would have to pay, were not entitled to class certification. Denying in part the plaintiffs’ class certification motion, District Judge Kronstadt of the United States District Court for the Central District of California held that the plaintiffs failed to satisfy the predominance requirement of Rule 23(b)(3) because individualized inquiries would be necessary to establish reliance. Some class members may have relied on the representations that there would be no more fees than the initial $5,000 fee, and would not have paid that first fee had they known of the additional fees, while others may have been willing to pay even more, for various reasons, the court concluded.

•  In Allstate Insurance Company v. Lyons, No. 11-CV-2190 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 16, 2012), insurance companies asserting that the defendants engaged in sophisticated schemes to obtain insurance proceeds for medical services to victims of car accidents were able to adequately allege a pattern of racketeering activity. Denying motions to dismiss the RICO claims, District Judge Gleeson of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York held that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged open-ended continuity.

•     In Heinrich v. Waiting Angels Adoption Services, Inc., No. 09-2470 (6th Cir. Feb. 7, 2012), seven couples who allegedly were defrauded by the defendants into paying adoption fees in their attempts to adopt children from Guatemala sufficiently alleged a pattern of racketeering activity. Reversing the dismissal of the RICO claims, the Sixth Circuit held that, contrary to the district court’s conclusion, the plaintiffs adequately satisfied the continuity requirement to establish a pattern of racketeering activity. While the short two-month duration of the alleged predicate activity did not satisfy closed-ended continuity, the plaintiffs had adequately alleged open-ended continuity.

•     In Westgate Financial Corp. v. Beinoni of NY Inc., No. 10 Civ. 8102 (TPG) (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 25, 2012), a lender allegedly defrauded when a borrower submitted fraudulent invoices to obtain advances under a factoring agreement was unable to establish continuity. Dismissing the RICO claims without leave to replead, District Judge Griesa of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York held that there was no dispute that there was no open-ended continuity because the defendants’ textile business was not by its nature unlawful, and since the factoring agreement had been terminated by the plaintiff, there appeared to be little threat of the defendants continuing the alleged activities against the plaintiff. Nor was there closed-ended continuity, the court ruled, because the alleged predicates spanned a period of one year, and in the Second Circuit a substantial period of time generally was two years.

•     In Cellco Partnership v. Hope, No. CV11-0432 PHX DGC (D.Ariz. Jan. 30, 2012), a cellphone company that allegedly incurred costs in remedying complaints by its customers caused by a texting business’s fraudulent means of soliciting business from those customers was able to adequately plead mail and wire fraud predicates. Denying in part the defendant’s motion to dismiss the RICO claims, District Judge Campbell of the United States District Court for the District of Arizona held that the complaint adequately alleged an intent on the part of the defendants to obtain money from the plaintiff. The defendants were alleged to have sought approval from the plaintiff as a vendor in its provider network as a means to obtain payments from the plaintiff, while the plaintiff bore the responsibility of billing customers, collecting payments, and responding to customer complaints. The allegations led to the reasonable inference that the defendants anticipated that the plaintiff would bear the cost associated with the fraudulent sales once the defendants’ deceptive marketing practice generated a large number of complaints.

•     In Delrio-Mocci v. Connolly Properties Inc., No. 09-4541 (3d Cir. Feb. 24, 2012), a tenant’s Section 1962(d) claim, asserting that his apartment managers had targeted illegal aliens as potential tenants because they would not complain of the buildings’ shabby conditions and therefore excessive rents could be maintained, was properly dismissed for failure to assert immigration law predicates. The Third Circuit held that the appellant had failed to establish the RICO predicate of “harboring” illegal aliens. The conduct of the apartment managers did not constitute the type of “substantial facilitation” that was required to establish a harboring offense. Even assuming that the defendants substantially facilitated aliens remaining in the United States, the appellant failed to show that their conduct tended to prevent government authorities from detecting the alien’s unlawful presence.

•           In Infanti v. Scharpf, No. 06 Civ. 6552 (E.D.N.Y. Feb. 15, 2012), an individual who, for purposes of evading a large judgment, formed a new company without holding its stock or serving as a director, but who served as its principal, lacked standing to bring RICO claims against two creditors that allegedly were trying to take over his business. Granting summary judgment on the RICO claims to the defendants, District Judge Glasser of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York held that shareholders, officers, and employees lacked standing to bring a RICO claim in their individual capacities for injuries to the corporation. The court ruled that the plaintiff’s personal guarantee of corporate loans did not create standing for losses to the corporation.