558
Opinion of the Court
(citing Malley-Duff, 483 U. S., at 151) (civil RICO specifically has a "further purpose [of] encouraging potential private plaintiffs diligently to investigate"). The provision for treble damages is accordingly justified by the expected benefit of suppressing racketeering activity, an object pursued the sooner the better. It would, accordingly, be strange to provide an unusually long basic limitations period that could only have the effect of postponing whatever public benefit civil RICO might realize. The Clayton Act avoids any such policy conflict by its accrual rule that "[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., at 338, and the Clayton Act analogy reflects the clear intent of Congress to reject a potentially longer basic rule under RICO.
In sum, any accrual rule softened by a pattern discovery feature would undercut every single policy we have mentioned. By tying the start of the limitations period to a plaintiff's reasonable discovery of a pattern rather than to the point of injury or its reasonable discovery, the rule would extend the potential limitations period for most civil RICO cases well beyond the time when a plaintiff's cause of action is complete,4 as this case shows. Rotella does not deny that
broadly" and " 'liberally construed to effectuate its remedial purposes,' " Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 497-498 (1985) (quoting Pub. L. 91-452, § 904(a), 84 Stat. 947).
4 Some Circuits apply injury and pattern discovery out of fear that when the injury precedes a second predicate act, the limitations period might otherwise expire before the pattern is created. E. g., Granite Falls Bank v. Henrikson, 924 F. 2d 150, 154 (CA8 1991). Respondents argue that this overlooks the cardinal principle that a limitations period does not begin to run until the cause of action is complete. Rawlings v. Ray, 312 U. S. 96, 98 (1941); see also United States v. Lindsay, 346 U. S. 568, 569 (1954); Clark v. Iowa City, 20 Wall. 583, 589 (1875).
The quandary is hypothetical here; Rotella does not dispute that his injury in 1986 completed the elements of his cause of action. Hence, we
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