Whenever any person shall suffer any injury to his or her person, reputation, or estate by reason of the commission of any crime or offense, he or she may recover his or her damages for the injury in a civil action against the offender, and it shall not be any defense to such action that no criminal complaint for the crime or offense has been made; and whenever any person shall be guilty of larceny, he or she shall be liable to the owner of the money or articles taken for twice the value thereof, unless the money or articles are restored, and for the value thereof in case of restoration.
R.I. Gen. Laws § 9-1-2
Civil liability for crimes and offenses
Applied in 15 court decisions — leading case Roma Construction Co. v. aRusso (1996)
Most recently applied in Caniglia v. Strom (March 2020)
C.P.A. 1905, § 236; G.L. 1909, ch. 283, § 16; G.L. 1923, ch. 333, § 16; G.L. 1938, ch. 478, § 1; G.L. 1956, § 9-1-2; P.L. 1965, ch. 55, § 6.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Rhode Island General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain Rhode Island statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.