Logan B. Gilmore and Blake C. Gilmore (collectively “plaintiffs”) appeal from the trial court’s order dismissing their amended complaint against defendants Sherrie Lynn Hicks Gilmore (“Mrs. Gilmore”), Deana Carlyle (“Carlyle”), and Milton Singletary (“Singletary”) (collectively
Factual Background
We have summarized the pertinent facts below using plaintiffs’ own statements from their amended cоmplaint, which we treat as true in reviewing the trial court’s order dismissing the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6). See, e.g., Stein v. Asheville City Bd. of Educ.,
Between 29 November 2011 and 12 December 2011, defendants conspired to create a fraudulent will for Mrs. Gilmore’s husband, Jackie Dean Gilmore (“Mr. Gilmore”). Carlyle and Singletary signed the fraudulent will as witnesses despite knowing that Mr. Gilmore (1) did not sign the document; (2) did not ask them to sign the document; and (3) did not indicate that he intended the document to be his will. After Mr. Gilmore’s death on 4 December 2011, Mrs. Gilmore submitted the fraudulent will for probate on or about 13 December 2011. In the application for probate, Mrs. Gilmore “knowingly falsely stated” that the document was the last will and testament of Mr. Gilmore and submitted an “Oath/Affirmation” swearing, under penalty of perjury, that she believed the document to be the last will and testament of Mr. Gilmore.
Carlyle and Singletary each signed an “Affidavit of Subscribing Witnesses for Probate of Will” dated 12 December 2011, where they falsely stated, under penalty of perjury, that “[t]he decedent, in my presence, signed the paper-writing, or acknowledged his/her signature thereto and at such time declared the paper-writing to be the decedent’s instrument.” Mrs. Gilmore then submitted these affidavits to the clerk of court in conjunction with the application for probate. Based on this application, the clerk of court probаted the fraudulent will, and plaintiffs subsequently moved to revoke probate.
At the February 2012 hearing on plaintiffs’ motion to revoke probate of the false will, Carlyle and Singletary falsely testified that Mr. Gilmore (1) told them that the document was, in fact, his will; and (2) asked them to sign it as witnesses. Mrs. Gilmore gave fraudulent testimony at this hearing that Mr. Gilmore had showed her the document in May 2010 and that she later found the executed copy of the document in a box in his closet.
On 15 June 2012, plaintiffs filed an amended complaint asserting claims for (1) fraud; (2) conspiracy to commit fraud; (3) a pattern
On 28 June 2012, defendants filed a motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ amended complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. The trial court heard defendants’ motion to dismiss on 6 August 2012 and granted the motion in an order entered on 13 August 2012, determining that:
[Hjaving carefully considered the precedents, including particularly the line of cases beginning with Godette v. Gaskill,151 N.C. 52 (1909), [the trial court] has concluded that while subornation of perjury and perjury are indictable criminal offenses, they do not give rise to a civil cause of action in North Carolina, so that plaintiffs’ amended complaint fails to state a claim for fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, obstruction of justice, a violation оf the North Carolina RICO statutes, and punitive damages ....
Plaintiffs appealed to this Court.
Analysis
I. Standard of Review
In their sole argument on appeal, plaintiffs contend that the trial court erred in granting defendants’ motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b) (6). “The standard of review of an order granting a [Rule] 12(b)(6) motion is whether the complaint states a claim for which relief can be granted under some legal theory when the complaint is liberally construed and all the allegations included therein are taken as true.” Burgin v. Owen,
II. Judicial Notice
Plaintiffs ask this Court to take judicial notice of the following facts: (1) Singletary was subsequently charged with felony conspiracy and perjury; (2) Mrs. Gilmore was subsequently charged with forgery of a will, uttering forged endorsements, felony conspiracy, and perjury; and (3) on
III. Claims for Fraud and Conspiracy to Commit Fraud
It is well established in North Carolina that neither perjury nor subornation of perjury may form the basis for a civil action. Strickland v. Hedrick,
[N]o action lies to recover damages caused by perjury, false swearing, subornation of perjury, or an attempt to suborn perjury, whether committed in the course of, or in connection with, a civil action or suit, criminal prosecution or other proceeding, and whether the perjurer was a party to, or a witness in, the action or proceeding.
Brewer v. Carolina Coach Co.,
This principle was first set out over a century ago by our Supreme Court in Godette v. Gaskill,
In Gillikin v. Sprinkle,
[I]t appears plaintiff asserts tortious conduct by defendant to plaintiff’s detriment by (1) initiating a conspiracy to suborn perjured testimony in an action to which plaintiff was a party, (2) fraud perpetrated by defendant on plaintiff by the perjured testimony, thereby preventing plaintiff from recovering for the wrongful death of his intestate, (3) defamation of plaintiff’s intestate by asserting intestate was drunk and nude when he drove the automobile and by exhibiting derogatory pictures of intestate, and (4) prostitution of the office of coroner to defendant’s personal advantage.
Relying on this line of cases, our Court has likewise declined to recognize various civil claims premised on the commission of perjury and conspiracy to commit perjury. In Strickland, we concluded that based on the rule that there is no recognized cause of action grounded in perjury or subornation of perjury, the defendants were entitled to summary judgment as to claims that they ‘“knowingly provided] false and misleading affidavits and other false information in order to secure the issuаnce of... bogus arrest warránts’ ” for the purpose of having the plaintiffs arrested. Strickland,
Notably, we have applied this rule regardless of how a plaintiff has denominated his claim where, as here, the claim wаs grounded in an allegation of perjury. For example, in Hawkins, the plaintiff asserted sixteen causes of action, including claims for perjury, fraud, civil conspiracy, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and unfair and deceptive trade practices — all of which were “essentially derived from allegations that the defendants knowingly gave false information to the FBI and IRS agents...; that defendants gave perjured testimony at Hawkins’ criminal trial; and that defendants’ answers to the . . . civil complaints contained information that defendants knew to be false.” Id. at 590,
In affirming the trial court’s dismissal of all of the plaintiff’s claims — rather than merely those denominated as claims for perjury and civil conspiracy to give false testimony — we explained that with regard to those other claims, plaintiff had “simply taken allegations of perjury and relabeled them as recognized causes of action.” Id. at 592,
Here, the essence of plaintiffs’ amended complaint is that defendants committed fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud when they created
Plaintiffs attempt to escape the effect of Godette and its progeny by relying on Henry v. Deen,
In Henry, the plaintiff, the administrator of the decedent’s estate, asserted a civil conspiracy claim against the defendants, alleging that the defendants conspired to — and did in fact — destroy, falsify, and fabricate various medical records to conceal their negligence and thwart the successful prosecution of the plaintiff’s wrongful death claim. Henry,
Perjury is defined by statute and case law as a false statement knowingly made in a proceeding in a court of competent jurisdiction or concerning a matter wherein an affiant is required by law to be sworn as to some matter material to the issue or point in question. The complaint in this case makes no allegations that the defendants perjured themselves by making false sworn statements. The complaint alleging conspiracy was apparently filed before any discovery in which sworn statements were made. The complaint sets no precise time at which the alleged conspiracy and wrongful acts occurred other than alleging that they occurred after the investigation of Henry’s death began____
Unlike the defendants in the Gilliken cases and their predecessors, at the time this action was brought the defendants were not subject to criminal sanctions for perjury. From the pleadings it appears that at the time of the alleged conspiracy no court had jurisdiction and the defendants had not been required to give sworn statements.
Id. at 89,
Despite plaintiffs’ assertions to the contrary, the facts of the present case are not analogous to thosе in Henry. Here, unlike in Henry,
Plaintiffs cite McCoy for the proposition that “regardless [of] whether someone has been charged or convicted of perjury, the commission of other bad acts subjects one to civil liability----” McCoy, however, does not support this proposition. In McCoy, the plaintiff sought to vacate a prior judgment against him that was allegedly procured by “fraud, subornation of witnesses, suppression of evidence, and jury attaint.” McCoy,
IV. Claim for Obstruction of Justice
For similar reasons, we believe the trial court was likewise correct in dismissing plaintiffs’ claim for obstruction of justice. In Henry, our Supreme Court concluded that the plaintiff’s complaint was improperly dismissed because the defendants’ alleged actions of destroying, falsifying, and fabricating the plaintiff’s medical records — if found — “would amount to the common law offense of obstructing public justice.” Henry,
As stated above, that is not the case here. Because the crux of their claim for obstruction of justice is defendants’ alleged commission of perjury and/or subornation of perjury, dismissal of this claim was proper.
Finally, plaintiffs argue that the General Assembly — by enacting the N.C. RICO statute codified in N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75D-1 et seq. — has statutorily created a civil cause of action where a defendant has committed multiple instances of perjury (or subornation of perjury). We hold that the trial court properly dismissed plaintiffs’ N.C. RICO claim because plaintiffs did not adequately plead all of the essential elements of that cause of action.
Pursuant to N.C. RICO, an “innocent person who is injured or damaged in his business or property” by a defendant’s pattern of racketeering activity may bring a private cause of action for treble damages and attorney’s fees. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75D-8(c) (2011). Under the statute, racketeering activity “means to commit, to attempt to commit, or to solicit, coerce, or intimidate another person to commit an act or acts which would be chargeable by indictment if such act or acts were accompanied by the necessary mens rea or criminal intent under... Chapter 14 of the General Statutes----” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75D-3(c)(l) (2011). Apattem of racketeering activity is defined, in pertinent part, as follows:
[A]t least two incidents of racketeering activity that have the same or similar purposes, results, accomplices, victims, or methods of commission or otherwise are interrelated by distinguishing characteristics and are not isolated and unrelated inсidents, provided... at least one other of such incidents occurred within a four-year period of time of the other, excluding any periods of imprisonment, after the commission of a prior incident of racketeering activity.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75D-3(b). The scope of N.C. RICO is limited to cases where there is “an interrelated pattern of organized unlawful activity, the purpose or effect of which is to derive pecuniary gain.” N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75D-2(c) (2011).
“[T]o state a claim under the NC RICO Act, (1) an ‘innocent person’ must allege (2) an injury or damage to his business or property (3) by reason of two or more acts of organized unlawful activity or conduct, (4) one of which is something other than mail fraud, wire fraud, or fraud in the sale of securities, (5) that resulted in pecuniary gain to the defendants].” In re Bostic Constr., Inc.,
Plaintiffs contend that they were injured “by their expenses associated with hiring a handwriting expert and moving to revoke probate of the Fraudulent Will and to prosecute the caveat.” These types of expenses, however, do not constitute an injury in fact sufficient to satisfy this element of an N.C. RICO claim.
In Strates Shows, Inc. v. Amusements of Am., Inc.,
these legal fees and costs are not direct injury flowing from defendants’ illegal conduct, but rather, at best, indirect injury which plaintiff did not automatically incur, but chose to incur, in mitigating the effect of defendants’ conduct. Stated differently, plaintiff’s choice to pursue a bid protest, however justified, was an independent cause which required the payment of legal fees and costs. Accordingly, while the illegal conduct by defendants may have been the cause-in-fact of plaintiff’s legal fees and costs, it was not the proximate cause of such fees and costs.
Id. (internal citations and quotation marks omitted).
As in Strates, plaintiffs here made a conscious choice to take action to mitigate the effect of defendants’ unlawful conduct by filing an action to revoke probate and by employing a handwriting expert to analyze the purported will. However appropriate these actions may have been, as in Strates, these expenses were not proximately caused by defendants’ illegal behavior and, therefore, are not sufficient to satisfy this element of a claim under N.C. RICO.
Plaintiffs’ reliance on Gram v. Davis,
Although the general rule in North Carolina is that attorneys’ fees and other costs associated with litigation are not recoverable in a legal malpractice action absent statutory liability, this rule does not apply to bar recovery for costs, including attorneys’ fees, incurred by a plaintiff to remedy the injury caused by the malpractice.
Id. at 489,
Recently, this Court expressly declined to extend the holding in Gram beyond the legal malpractice realm. See Robinson v. Hope,_ N.C. App._,_,,
B. Pecuniary Gain Element
“[T]he scope of NC RICO is limited to cases where pecuniary gain is derived from organized unlawful activity prohibited under the statute. Put simply, section 75D-2(c) requires the aggrieved party to establish a causal connection between the alleged pecuniary gain and [the] defendant’s activities which allegedly violate section 75D-4.” Kaplan v. Prolife Action League of Greensboro,
For the reasons stated above, we affirm the trial court’s order dismissing plaintiffs’ amended complaint.
AFFIRMED.
Notes
. Singletary filed a motion with this Court seeking dismissal of the appeal or, in the alternative, sanctions against plaintiffs for requesting judicial notice of the above-referenced facts. He contends that requesting judicial notice of these facts after plaintiffs’ motion to supplement the record was denied constitutes a violation of the North Carolina Rules of Appellate Procedure. Although we agree that the request for judicial notice should be denied, we do not believe that plaintiffs’ conduct “grossly violated” the Appellate Rules. See Dogwood Dev. & Mgmt. Co. v. White Oak Transp.,
. This Court has looked to federal caselaw interpreting the injury requirement of a federal RICO action when analyzing the analogous injury provision of N.C. RICO. See Kaplan v. Prolife Action League of Greensboro,
