Cite as: 503 U. S. 258 (1992)
Opinion of O'Connor, J.
broadly, authorizing "[a]ny person" who is injured by reason of a RICO violation to sue. "[P]erson" is defined to include "any individual or entity capable of holding a legal or beneficial interest in property." § 1961(3) (emphasis added). "Insofar as 'any' encompasses 'all'," Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast, Inc. v. United Distribution Cos., 498 U. S. 211, 223 (1991), the words "any person" cannot reasonably be read to mean only purchasers and sellers of securities. As we have explained in rejecting previous efforts to narrow the scope of civil RICO: "If the defendant engages in a pattern of racketeering activity in a manner forbidden by [§ 1962's] provisions, and the racketeering activities injure the plaintiff in his business or property, the plaintiff has a claim under § 1964(c). There is no room in the statutory language for an additional . . . requirement." Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 495 (1985).
Of course, a RICO plaintiff "only has standing if, and can
only recover to the extent that, he has been injured in his business or property by [reason of] the conduct constituting the violation." Id., at 496. We have already remarked that the requirement of injury in one's "business or property" limits the availability of RICO's civil remedies to those who have suffered injury in fact. Id., at 497 (citing Haroco, Inc. v. American National Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago, 747 F. 2d 384, 398 (CA7 1984)). Today, the Court sensibly holds that the statutory words "by reason of" operate, as they do in the antitrust laws, to confine RICO's civil remedies to those whom the defendant has truly injured in some meaningful sense. Requiring a proximate relationship between the defendant's actions and the plaintiff's harm, however, cannot itself preclude a nonpurchaser or nonseller of securities, alleging predicate acts of fraud in the sale of securities, from bringing suit under § 1964(c). Although the words "injury in [one's] business or property" and "by reason of" are words of limitation, they do not categorically exclude non-
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