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Cite as: 599 U. S. ____ (2023)
9

Opinion of the Court

aims and effects of that activity.

This approach to the domestic-injury requirement is most consistent with RJR Nabisco. There, the Court clarified that its domestic-injury requirement “does not mean that foreign plaintiffs may not sue under RICO.” 579 U. S., at 353, n. 12. Similarly, the Court explained that “application of [the domestic-injury] rule in any given case will not always be self-evident, as disputes may arise as to whether a particular alleged injury is ‘foreign’ or ‘domestic.’ ” Id., at 354. These remarks point toward a case-specific inquiry that considers the particular facts surrounding the alleged injury. Petitioners’ bright-line rule, in contrast, dispenses with any such subtlety. It makes the location of the plaintiff’s residence determinative, thus barring all foreign plaintiffs, exactly as RJR Nabisco said it was not doing.

A contextual approach to the domestic-injury requirement also better reflects the requirement’s origin in step two of the extraterritoriality framework, which assesses whether there is a domestic application of a statute by looking to the statute’s focus. RJR Nabisco implied that the focus of §1964(c) is injuries in “business or property by reason of a violation of [RICO’s substantive provisions].” §1964(c). This focus makes sense because, in the context of RICO, “the compensable injury necessarily is the harm caused by predicate acts sufficiently related to constitute a pattern, for the essence of the violation is the commission of those acts in connection with the conduct of an enterprise.” Sedima, S. P. R. L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U. S. 479, 497 (1985). So understood, §1964(c)’s focus is on the injury, not in isolation, but as the product of racketeering activity. Thus, in assessing whether there is a domestic injury, courts should engage in a case-specific analysis that looks


    Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 547 U. S. 451, 457–458 (2006) (describing the proximate causation requirement as a “directness requiremen[t]”).