Cite as: 528 U. S. 549 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
III
We think the minority injury and pattern discovery rule unsound for a number of reasons. We start with the realization that under the provision recognizing the possibility of finding a pattern of racketeering in 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 before commencement of litigation. A pattern discovery rule would allow proof of a defendant's acts 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 defendant's potential liabilities. See, e. g., Klehr, supra, at 187; Malley-Duff, 483 U. S., at 150, 156; Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U. S. 261, 270, 271 (1985).
How long is too long is, of course, a matter of judgment based on experience, and it gives us great pause that the injury and pattern discovery rule is an extension of the traditional federal accrual rule of injury discovery, and unwar-ranted by the injury discovery rule's rationale. Federal courts, to be sure, generally apply a discovery accrual rule when a statute is silent on the issue, as civil RICO is here. Klehr, supra, at 191 (citing Connors v. Hallmark & Son Coal Co., 935 F. 2d 336, 342 (CADC 1991), and 1 C. Corman, Limitation of Actions § 6.5.5.1, p. 449 (1991)). But in applying a discovery accrual rule, we have been at pains to explain that discovery of the injury, not discovery of the other elements of a claim, is what starts the clock. In the circumstance of medical malpractice, where the cry for a discovery rule is loudest, we have been emphatic that the justification for a discovery rule does not extend beyond the injury:
"We are unconvinced that for statute of limitations purposes a plaintiff's ignorance of his legal rights and his
as Amicus Curiae 5-14, but the parties have not focused on this option, and we would not pass upon it without more attentive advocacy.
555
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