550
Syllabus
RICO cases well beyond the time when a plaintiff's cause of action is complete. Under a provision recognizing the possibility of predicate acts 10 years apart, even an injury occurrence rule unsoftened by a discovery feature could in theory open the door to proof of predicate acts occurring 10 years before injury and 14 years before commencement of suit. A pattern discovery rule would allow proof even more remote from time of trial and, hence, litigation even more at odds with the basic policies of all limitations provisions: repose, elimination of stale claims, and certainty about a plaintiff's opportunity for recovery and a defend-ant's potential liabilities. See, e. g., Klehr, supra, at 187. In the circumstance of medical malpractice, where the cry for a discovery rule is loudest, the Court has been emphatic that the justification for such a rule does not extend beyond the injury. United States v. Kubrick, 444 U. S. 111, 122. A person suffering from inadequate treatment is thus responsible for determining within the limitations period then running whether the inadequacy was malpractice. There is no good reason for accepting a lesser degree of responsibility on a RICO plaintiff's part. The fact, as Rotella notes, that identifying a pattern in civil RICO may require considerable effort does not place a RICO plaintiff in a significantly different position from the malpractice victim, who may be thwarted by ignorance of the details of treatment decisions or of prevailing medical practice standards. This Court has also recognized that the connection between fraud and civil RICO is an insufficient ground for recognizing a limitations period beyond four years, Malley-Duff, supra, at 149, and adopting Rotella's lenient rule would amount to backtracking from Malley-Duff. Rotella's less demanding discovery rule would also clash with the limitations imposed on Clayton Act suits. There is a clear legislative record of congressional reliance on the Clayton Act when RICO was under consideration, and the Clayton Act's injury-focused accrual rule was well established by the time civil RICO was enacted. Both statutes share a common congressional objective of encouraging civil litigation not merely to compensate victims but also to turn them into private attorneys general, supplementing Government efforts by undertaking litigation in the public good. The Clayton Act analogy reflects Congress's clear intent to reject a potentially longer basic rule under RICO. Neither of Rotella's two remaining points— that this Court itself has undercut the Clayton Act analogy; and that without a pattern discovery rule, some plaintiffs will be barred from suit by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 9(b), which requires that fraud be pleaded with particularity—supports adoption of a more protracted basic limitations period. Pp. 555-561.
147 F. 3d 438, affirmed.
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