Cite as: 527 U. S. 1 (1999)
Opinion of the Court
party"). Thus, under the rule that Congress intends to incorporate the well-settled meaning of the common-law terms it uses, we cannot infer from the absence of an express reference to materiality that Congress intended to drop that element from the fraud statutes.6 On the contrary, we must presume that Congress intended to incorporate materiality " 'unless the statute otherwise dictates.' " Nationwide Mut. Ins., supra, at 322.7
The Government attempts to rebut this presumption by arguing that the term "defraud" would bear its common-law meaning only if the fraud statutes "indicated that Congress had codified the crime of false pretenses or one of the common-law torts sounding in fraud." Brief for United States 37. Instead, the Government argues, Congress chose
6 We concluded as much in Field v. Mans, 516 U. S. 59, 69 (1995): " '[F]alse pretenses, a false representation, or actual frau[d]' carry the acquired meaning of terms of art. They are common-law terms, and . . . they imply elements that the common law has defined them to include. . . . Congress could have enumerated their elements, but Congress's contrary drafting choice did not deprive them of a significance richer than the bare statement of their terms."
7 The Government argues that because Congress has provided express materiality requirements in other statutes prohibiting fraudulent conduct, the absence of such an express reference in the fraud statutes at issue " 'speaks volumes.' " Brief for United States 35 (citing 21 U. S. C. § 843(a)(4)(A)) (prohibiting the furnishing of "false or fraudulent material information" in documents required under federal drug laws); 26 U. S. C. § 6700(a)(2)(A) (criminalizing the making of a statement regarding investment tax benefits that an individual "knows or has reason to kno[w] is false or fraudulent as to any material matter"). These later enacted statutes, however, differ from the fraud statutes here in that they prohibit both "false" and "fraudulent" statements or information. Because the term "false statement" does not imply a materiality requirement, United States v. Wells, 519 U. S. 482, 491 (1997), the word "material" limits the statutes' scope to material falsehoods. Moreover, these statutes cannot rebut the presumption that Congress intended to incorporate the common-law meaning of the term "fraud" in the mail fraud, wire fraud, and bank fraud statutes. That rebuttal can only come from the text or structure of the fraud statutes themselves. See Nationwide Mut. Ins., 503 U. S., at 322.
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