Cite as: 503 U. S. 258 (1992)
Scalia, J., concurring in judgment
port an action under civil RICO. See Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 497 (1985). One of the usual elements of statutory standing is proximate causality. It is required in RICO not so much because RICO has language similar to that of the Clayton Act, which in turn has language similar to that of the Sherman Act, which, by the time the Clayton Act had been passed, had been interpreted to include a proximate-cause requirement; but rather, I think, because it has always been the practice of common-law courts (and probably of all courts, under all legal systems) to require as a condition of recovery, unless the legislature specifically prescribes otherwise, that the injury have been proximately caused by the offending conduct. Life is too short to pursue every human act to its most remote consequences; "for want of a nail, a kingdom was lost" is a commentary on fate, not the statement of a major cause of action against a blacksmith. See Associated General Contractors of Cal., Inc. v. Carpenters, 459 U. S. 519, 536 (1983).
Yet another element of statutory standing is compliance with what I shall call the "zone-of-interests" test, which seeks to determine whether, apart from the directness of the injury, the plaintiff is within the class of persons sought to be benefited by the provision at issue.* Judicial inference of a zone-of-interests requirement, like judicial inference of a proximate-cause requirement, is a background practice against which Congress legislates. See Block v. Community Nutrition Institute, 467 U. S. 340, 345-348 (1984). Sometimes considerable limitations upon the zone of interests are set forth explicitly in the statute itself—but rarely, if ever, are those limitations so complete that they are
*My terminology may not be entirely orthodox. It may be that proximate causality is itself an element of the zone-of-interests test as that phrase has ordinarily been used, see, e. g., Wyoming v. Oklahoma, 502 U. S. 437, 473 (1992) (Scalia, J., dissenting), but that usage would leave us bereft of terminology to connote those aspects of the "violation-injury connection" aspect of standing that are distinct from proximate causality.
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