554
Opinion of the Court
Building, Inc. v. Barnett Bank, 906 F. 2d 1546, 1554-1555 (CA11 1990).
The Third Circuit applied a "last predicate act" rule, see Keystone Ins. Co. v. Houghton, 863 F. 2d 1125, 1130 (CA3 1988). Under this rule, the period began to run as soon as the plaintiff knew or should have known of the injury and the pattern of racketeering activity, but began to run anew upon each predicate act forming part of the same pattern.
In Klehr v. A. O. Smith Corp., 521 U. S. 179 (1997), we cut the possibilities by one in rejecting the last predicate act rule. Since a pattern of predicate acts can continue indefinitely, with each separated by as many as 10 years, that rule might have extended the limitations period to many decades, and so beyond any limit that Congress could have contemplated. See ibid. Preserving a right of action for such a vast stretch of time would have thwarted the basic objective of repose underlying the very notion of a limitations period. See id., at 189. The last predicate act rule was likewise at odds with the model for civil RICO, the Clayton Act, under which "[g]enerally, a cause of action accrues and the statute begins to run when a defendant commits an act that injures a plaintiff's business." Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 401 U. S. 321, 338 (1971); Klehr, supra, at 188.
The decision in Klehr left two candidates favored by various Courts of Appeals: some form of the injury discovery rule (preferred by a majority of Circuits to have considered it), and the injury and pattern discovery rule. Today, guided by principles enunciated in Klehr, we eliminate the latter.2
2 We do not, however, settle upon a final rule. In addition to the possibilities entertained in the Courts of Appeals, Justice Scalia has espoused an "injury occurrence" rule, under which discovery would be irrelevant, Klehr v. A. O. Smith Corp., 521 U. S. 179, 198 (1997) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment), and our decision in Klehr leaves open the possibility of a straight injury occurrence rule. Amicus American Council of Life Insurance urges us to adopt this injury occurrence rule in this case, see Brief for American Council of Life Insurance
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