Klehr v. A. O. Smith Corp., 521 U.S. 179, 23 (1997)

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Cite as: 521 U. S. 179 (1997)

Opinion of Scalia, J.

limitations provision can be adopted is relatively simple (for the cause of action before us, we did it in Malley-Duff); but limiting the adoption to merely the term of years set forth in the limitations provision, and then selecting, to go with that term of years, the precise accrual rule, tolling rule, estoppel rule, etc., that will clothe the limitations-naked statute with an ensemble of policy perfection—well that is, I concede, a task that should not be attacked all at once, but rather undertaken piecemeal, over several decades, as the Court has chosen to do today. I prefer to stand by the ruder, humbler, but more efficient and predictable practice we have followed in the past: When we adopt a statute of limitations from an analogous federal cause of action we adopt it in whole, with all its accoutrements. Perhaps (though I am dubious) there is room for an exception similar to the one made in our state-borrowing practice, see Hardin, supra, that would permit rejection of an element that "would defeat the goals of the federal statute at issue," 490 U. S., at 539. But unless this exception is to gobble up the rule, nothing so extreme is represented by the Clayton Act accrual rule.

Applying the Clayton Act accrual rule, I agree with the Court that petitioners' cause of action accrued more than four years before the filing of this action on August 27, 1993. See ante, at 192. Since the Court of Appeals determined, under a more relaxed accrual rule, that petitioners should have discovered all of the RICO elements (which would include their injury) prior to 1989, it follows, a fortiori, that under the Clayton Act injury accrual rule, petitioners' cause of action is untimely.

I also agree with the Court that petitioners are not entitled to invoke the fraudulent concealment doctrine. As the Court persuasively demonstrates, in the antitrust context " '[t]he concealment requirement is satisfied only if the plaintiff shows that he neither knew nor, in the exercise of due diligence, could reasonably have known of the offense.' "

201

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