560
Opinion of the Court
RICO patterns is a good reason to ignore the Clayton Act model, see supra, at 556-557. Here it remains only to respond to Rotella's argument that we ourselves undercut the force of the Clayton Act analogy when we held that RICO had no racketeering injury requirement comparable to the antitrust injury requirement under the Clayton Act, see Sedima, 473 U. S., at 495. This point not only fails to support but even cuts against Rotella's position. By eliminating the complication of anything like an antitrust injury element we have, to that extent, recognized a simpler RICO cause of action than its Clayton Act counterpart, and RICO's comparative simplicity in this respect surely does not support the adoption of a more protracted basic limitations period.
Finally, Rotella returns to his point that RICO patterns will involve fraud in many cases, when he argues that unless a pattern discovery rule is recognized, a RICO plaintiff will sometimes be barred from suit by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b), which provides that fraud must be pleaded with particularity. While we will assume that Rule 9(b) will exact some cost, we are wary of allowing speculation about that cost to control the resolution of the issue here. Rotella has presented no case in which Rule 9(b) has effectively barred a claim like his, and he ignores the flexibility provided by Rule 11(b)(3), allowing pleadings based on evidence reasonably anticipated after further investigation or discovery. See, e. g., Corley v. Rosewood Care Center, Inc. of Peoria, 142 F. 3d 1041, 1050-1051 (CA7 1998) (relaxing particularity requirements of Rule 9(b) where RICO plaintiff lacks access to all facts necessary to detail claim). It is not that we mean to reject Rotella's concern about allowing "blameless ignorance" to defeat a claim, Urie v. Thompson, 337 U. S. 163, 170 (1949); we simply do not think such a concern should control the decision about the basic limitations rule. In rejecting pattern discovery as a basic rule, we do not unsettle the understanding that federal statutes of limitations are generally subject to equitable principles of tolling, see Holm-
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