Court Opinion

ID: 9430179
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:29:08.344932+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:39.585610
License: Public Domain

Justice Marshall,
with whom Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun, and Justice Powell join, dissenting.*
The Court today recognizes that “in its private civil version, RICO is evolving into something quite different from *501the original conception of its enactors.” Ante, at 500. The Court, however, expressly validates this result, imputing it to the manner in which the statute was drafted. I fundamentally disagree both with the Court’s reading of the statute and with its conclusion. I believe that the statutory language and history disclose a narrower interpretation of the statute that fully effectuates Congress’ purposes, and that does not make compensable under civil RICO a host of claims that Congress never intended to bring within RICO’s purview.
I
The Court’s interpretation of the civil RICO statute quite simply revolutionizes private litigation; it validates the federalization of broad areas of state common law of frauds, and it approves the displacement of well-established federal remedial provisions. We do not lightly infer a congressional intent to effect such fundamental changes. To infer such intent here would be untenable, for there is no indication that Congress even considered, much less approved, the scheme that the Court today defines.
The single most significant reason for the expansive use of civil RICO has been the presence in the statute, as predicate acts, of mail and wire fraud violations. See 18 U. S. C. § 1961(1) (1982 ed., Supp. III). Prior to RICO, no federal statute had expressly provided a private damages remedy based upon a violation of the mail or wire fraud statutes, which make it a federal crime to use the mail or wires in furtherance of a scheme to defraud. See 18 U. S. C. §§ 1341, 1343. Moreover, the Courts of Appeals consistently had held that no implied federal private causes of action accrue to victims of these federal violations. See, e. g., Ryan v. Ohio Edison Co., 611 F. 2d 1170, 1178-1179 (CA6 1979) (mail fraud); Napper v. Anderson, Henley, Shields, Bradford & Pritchard, 500 F. 2d 634, 636 (CA5 1974) (wire fraud), cert. denied, 423 U. S. 837 (1975). . The victims normally were restricted to bringing actions in state court under common-law fraud theories.
*502Under the Court’s opinion today, two fraudulent mailings or uses of the wires occurring within 10 years of each other might constitute a “pattern of racketeering activity,” § 1961 (5), leading to civil RICO liability. See § 1964(c). The effects of making a mere two instances of mail or wire fraud potentially actionable under civil RICO are staggering, because in recent years the Courts of Appeals have “tolerated an extraordinary expansion of mail and wire fraud statutes to permit federal prosecution for conduct that some had thought was subject only to state criminal and civil law.” United States v. Weiss, 752 F. 2d 777, 791 (CA2 1985) (Newman, J., dissenting). In bringing criminal actions under those statutes, prosecutors need not show either a substantial connection between the scheme to defraud and the mail and wire fraud statutes, see Pereira v. United States, 347 U. S. 1, 8 (1954), or that the fraud involved money or property. Courts have sanctioned prosecutions based on deprivations of such intangible rights as a shareholder’s right to “material” information, United States v. Siegel, 717 F. 2d 9, 14-16 (CA2 1983); a client’s right to the “undivided loyalty” of his attorney, United States v. Bronston, 658 F. 2d 920, 927 (CA2 1981), cert. denied, 456 U. S. 915 (1982); an employer’s right to the honest and faithful service of his employees, United States v. Bohonus, 628 F. 2d 1167, 1172 (CA9), cert. denied, 447 U. S. 928 (1980); and a citizen’s right to know the nature of agreements entered into by the leaders of political parties, United States v. Margiotta, 688 F. 2d 108, 123-125 (CA2 1982), cert. denied, 461 U. S. 913 (1983).
The only restraining influence on the “inexorable expansion of the mail and wire fraud statutes,” United States v. Siegel, supra, at 24 (Winter, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part), has been the prudent use of prosecutorial discretion. Prosecutors simply do not invoke the mail and wire fraud provisions in every case in which a violation of the relevant statute can be proved. See U. S. Dept, of Justice, United States Attorney’s Manual §9-43.120 (Feb. 16, 1984). *503For example, only where the scheme is directed at a “class of persons or the general public” and includes “a substantial pattern of conduct,” will “serious consideration ... be given to [mail fraud] prosecution.” In all other cases, “the parties should be left to settle their differences by civil or criminal litigation in the state courts.” Ibid.
The responsible use of prosecutorial discretion is particularly important with respect to criminal RICO prosecutions — which often rely on mail and wire fraud as predicate acts — given the extremely severe penalties authorized by RICO’s criminal provisions. Federal prosecutors are therefore instructed that “[ujtilization of the RICO statute, more so than most other federal criminal sanctions, requires particularly careful and reasoned application.” Id., §9-110.200 (Mar. 9, 1984). The Justice Department itself recognizes that a broad interpretation of the criminal RICO provisions would violate “the principle that the primary responsibility for enforcing state laws rests with the state concerned.” Ibid. Specifically, the Justice Department will not bring RICO prosecutions unless the pattern of racketeering activity required by 18 U. S. C. § 1962 has “some relation to the purpose of the enterprise.” United States Attorney’s Manual §9-110.350 (Mar. 9, 1984).
Congress was well aware of the restraining influence of prosecutorial discretion when it enacted the criminal RICO provisions. It chose to confer broad statutory authority on the Executive fully expecting that this authority would be used only in cases in which its use was warranted. See Measures Relating to Organized Crime: Hearings on S. 30 et al. before the Subcommittee on Criminal Laws and Procedures of the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 1st Sess., 346-347, 424 (1969) (hereinafter cited as Senate Hearings). Moreover, in seeking a broad interpretation of RICO from this Court in United States v. Turkette, 452 U. S. 576 (1981), the Government stressed that no “extreme cases” would be brought because the Justice Department would ex*504ercise “sound discretion” through a centralized review process. See Brief for United States in No. 80-808, O. T. 1980, p. 25, n. 20.
In the context of civil RICO, however, the restraining influence of prosecutors is completely absent. Unlike the Government, private litigants have no reason to avoid displacing state common-law remedies. Quite to the contrary, such litigants, lured by the prospect of treble damages and attorney’s fees, have a strong incentive to invoke RICO’s provisions whenever they can allege in good faith two instances of mail or wire fraud. Then the defendant, facing a tremendous financial exposure in addition to the threat of being labeled a “racketeer,” will have a strong interest in settling the dispute. See Rakoff, Some Personal Reflections on the Sedima Case and on Reforming RICO, in RICO: Civil and Criminal 400 (Law Journal Seminars-Press 1984). The civil RICO provision consequently stretches the mail and wire fraud statutes to their absolute limits and federalizes important areas of civil litigation that until now were solely within the domain of the States.
In addition to altering fundamentally the federal-state balance in civil remedies, the broad reading of the civil RICO provision also displaces important areas of federal law. For example, one predicate offense under RICO is “fraud in the sale of securities.” 18 U. S. C. §1961(1) (1982 ed., Supp. III). By alleging two instances of such fraud, a plaintiff might be able to bring a case within the scope of the civil RICO provision. It does not take great legal insight to realize that such a plaintiff would pursue his case under RICO rather than do so solely under the Securities Act of 1933 or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which provide both express and implied causes of action for violations of the federal securities laws. Indeed, the federal securities laws contemplate only compensatory damages and ordinarily do not authorize recovery of attorney’s fees. By invoking RICO, in contrast, a sue-*505cessful plaintiff will recover both treble damages and attorney’s fees.
More importantly, under the Court’s interpretation, the civil RICO provision does far more than just increase the available damages. In fact, it virtually eliminates decades of legislative and judicial development of private civil remedies under the federal securities laws. Over the years, courts have paid close attention to matters such as standing, culpability, causation, reliance, and materiality, as well as the definitions of “securities” and “fraud.” See, e. g., Blue Chip Stamps v. Manor Drug Stores, 421 U. S. 723 (1975) (purchaser/seller requirement). All of this law is now an endangered species because plaintiffs can avoid the limitations of the securities laws merely by alleging violations of other predicate acts. For example, even in cases in which the investment instrument is not a “security” covered by the federal securities laws, RICO will provide a treble-damages remedy to a plaintiff who can prove the required pattern of mail or wire fraud. Cf. Crocker National Bank v. Rockwell International Corp., 555 F. Supp. 47 (ND Cal. 1982). Before RICO, of course, the plaintiff could not have recovered under federal law for the mail or wire fraud violation.
Similarly, a customer who refrained from selling a security during a period in which its market value was declining could allege that, on two occasions, his broker recommended by telephone, as part of a scheme to defraud, that the customer not sell the security. The customer might thereby prevail under civil RICO even though, as neither a purchaser nor a seller, he would not have had standing to bring an action under the federal securities laws. See also 741 F. 2d 482, 499 (1984) (“two misstatements in a proxy solicitation could subject any director in any national corporation to ‘racketeering’ charges and the threat of treble damages and attorneys’ fees”).
The effect of civil RICO on federal remedial schemes is not limited to the securities laws. For example, even though *506commodities fraud is not a predicate offense listed in § 1961, the carefully crafted private damages causes of action under the Commodity Exchange Act may be circumvented in a commodities case through civil RICO actions alleging mail or wire fraud. See, e. g., Parnes v. Heinold Commodities, Inc., 487 F. Supp. 645 (ND Ill. 1980). The list goes on and on.
The dislocations caused by the Court’s reading of the civil RICO provision are not just theoretical. In practice, this provision frequently has been invoked against legitimate businesses in ordinary commercial settings. As the Court recognizes, the ABA Task Force that studied civil RICO found that 40% of the reported cases involved securities fraud and 37% involved common-law fraud in a commercial or business setting. See ante, at 499, n. 16. Many a prudent defendant, facing ruinous exposure, will decide to settle even a case with no merit. It is thus not surprising that civil RICO has been used for extortive purposes, giving rise to the very evils that it was designed to combat. Report of the Ad Hoc Civil RICO Task Force of the ABA Section of Corporation, Banking and Business Law 69 (1985) (hereinafter cited as ABA Report).
Only 9% of all civil RICO cases have involved allegations of criminal activity normally associated with professional criminals. See ante, at 499, n. 16. The central purpose that Congress sought to promote through civil RICO is now a mere footnote.
In summary, in both theory and practice, civil RICO has brought profound changes to our legal landscape. Undoubtedly, Congress has the power to federalize a great deal of state common law, and there certainly are no relevant constraints on its ability to displace federal law. Those, how-' ever, are not the questions that we face in this case. What we have to decide here, instead, is whether Congress in fact intended to produce these far-reaching results.
*507Established canons of statutory interpretation counsel against the Court’s reading of the civil RICO provision. First, we do not impute lightly a congressional intention to upset the federal-state balance in the provision of civil remedies as fundamentally as does this statute under the Court’s view. For example, in Santa Fe Industries, Inc. v. Green, 430 U. S. 462 (1977), we stated that “[a]bsent a clear indication of congressional intent, we are reluctant to federalize the substantial portion of the law of corporations that deals with transactions in securities.” Id., at 479. Here, with striking nonchalance, the Court does what it declined to do in Santa Fe Industries — and much more as well. Second, with respect to effects on the federal securities laws and other federal regulatory statutes, we should be reluctant to displace the well-entrenched federal remedial schemes absent clear direction from Congress. See, e. g., Train v. Colorado Public Interest Research Group, Inc., 426 U. S. 1, 23-24 (1976); Radzanower v. Touche Ross & Co., 426 U. S. 148, 153 (1976).
In this case, nothing in the language of the statute or the legislative history suggests that Congress intended either the federalization of state common law or the displacement of existing federal remedies. Quite to the contrary, all that the statute and the legislative history reveal as to these matters is what Judge Oakes called a “clanging silence,” 741 F. 2d, at 492.
Moreover, if Congress had intended to bring about dramatic changes in the nature of commercial litigation, it would at least have paid more than cursory attention to the civil RICO provision. This provision was added in the House of Representatives after the Senate already had passed its version of the RICO bill; the House itself adopted a civil remedy provision almost as an afterthought; and the Senate thereafter accepted the House’s version of the bill without even requesting a Conference. See infra, at 518-519. Congress simply does not act in this way when it intends to effect fundamental changes in the structure of federal law.
*508II
The statutory language and legislative history support the view that Congress did not intend to effect a radical alteration of federal civil litigation. In fact, the language and history indicate a congressional intention to limit, in a workable and coherent manner, the type of injury that is com-pensable under the civil RICO provision. As the following demonstrates, Congress sought to fill an existing gap in civil remedies and to provide a means of compensation that otherwise did not exist for the honest businessman harmed by the economic power of “racketeers.”
A
I begin with a review of the statutory language. Section 1964(c) grants a private right of action to any person “injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962.” Section 1962, in turn, makes it unlawful to invest, in an enterprise engaged in interstate commerce, funds “derived . . . from a pattern of racketeering activity,” to acquire or operate an interest in any such enterprise through “a pattern of racketeering activity,” or to conduct or participate in the conduct of that enterprise “through a pattern of racketeering activity.” Section 1961 defines “racketeering activity” to mean any of numerous acts “chargeable” or “indictable” under enumerated state and federal laws, including state-law murder, arson, and bribery statutes, federal mail and wire fraud statutes, and the antifraud provisions of federal securities laws. It states that “a pattern” of racketeering activity requires proof of at least two acts of racketeering within 10 years.
By its terms, § 1964(c) therefore grants a cause of action only to a person injured “by reason of a violation of §1962.” The Court holds today that the only injury a plaintiff need allege is injury occurring by reason of a predicate, or racketeering, act — i. e., one of the offenses listed in § 1961. But § 1964(c) does not by its terms provide a remedy for injury by *509reason of §1961; it requires an injury by reason of § 1962. In other words:
“While section 1962 prohibits the involvement of an ‘enterprise’ in ‘racketeering activity,’ racketeering itself is not a violation of § 1962. Thus, a construction of RICO permitting recovery for damages arising out of the racketeering acts simply does not comport with the statute as written by Congress. In effect, the broad construction replaces the rule that treble damages can be recovered only when they occur ‘by reason of a violation of section 1962,’ with a rule permitting recovery of treble damages whenever there has been a violation of section 1962. Such unwarranted judicial interference with the Act’s plain meaning cannot be justified.” Comment, 76 Nw. U. L. Rev. 100, 128 (1981) (footnotes omitted).
See also Bridges, Private RICO Litigation Based Upon “Fraud in the Sale of Securities,” 18 Ga. L. Rev. 43, 67 (1983).
In addition, the statute permits recovery only for injury to business or property. It therefore excludes recovery for personal injuries. However, many of the predicate acts listed in § 1961 threaten or inflict personal injuries — such as murder and kidnaping. If Congress in fact intended the victims of the predicate acts to recover for their injuries, as the Court holds it did, it is inexplicable why Congress would have limited recovery to business or property injury. It simply makes no sense to allow recovery by some, but not other victims of predicate acts, and to make recovery turn solely on whether the defendant has chosen to inflict personal pain or harm to property in order to accomplish its end.
In summary, the statute clearly contemplates recovery for injury resulting from the confluence of events described in § 1962 and not merely from the commission of a predicate act. The Court’s contrary interpretation distorts the statutory language under the guise of adopting a plain-meaning definition, and it does so without offering any indication of congres*510sional intent that justifies a deviation from what I have shown to be the plain meaning of the statute. However, even if the statutory language were ambiguous, see Haroco, Inc. v. American National Bank & Trust Co. of Chicago, 747 F. 2d 384, 389 (CA7 1984), aff’d, post, p. 606, the scope of the civil RICO provision would be no different, for this interpretation of the statute finds strong support in the legislative history of that provision.
B
In reviewing the legislative history of civil RICO, numerous federal courts have become mired in controversy about the extent to which Congress intended to adopt or reject the federal antitrust laws as a model for the RICO provisions. The basis for the dispute among the lower courts is the language of the treble-damages provision, which tracks virtually word for word the treble-damages provision of the antitrust laws, § 4 of the Clayton Act;1 given this parallel, there can be little doubt that the latter served as a model for the former. Some courts have relied heavily on this congruity to read an antitrust-type “competitive injury” requirement into the civil RICO statute. See, e. g., North Barrington Development, Inc. v. Fanslow, 647 F. Supp. 207 (ND Ill. 1980). Other courts have rejected a competitive-injury requirement, or any antitrust analogy, relying in significant part on what *511they perceive as Congress’ rejection of a wholesale adoption of antitrust precedent. See, e. g., Yancoski v. E. F. Hutton & Co., Inc., 581 F. Supp. 88 (ED Pa. 1983); Mauriber v. Shear son/American Express, Inc., 567 F. Supp. 1231, 1240 (SDNY 1983).
Many of these courts have read far too much into the antitrust analogy. The legislative history makes clear that Congress viewed the form of civil remedies under RICO as analogous to such remedies under the antitrust laws, but that it did not thereby intend the substantive compensable injury to be exactly the same. The legislative history also suggests that Congress might have wanted to avoid saddling the civil RICO provisions with the same standing requirements that at the time limited standing to sue under the antitrust laws. However, the Committee Reports and hearings in no way suggest that Congress considered and rejected a requirement of injury separate from that resulting from the predicate acts. Far from it, Congress offered considerable indication that the kind of injury it primarily sought to attack and compensate was that for which existing civil and criminal remedies were inadequate or nonexistent; the requisite injury is thus akin to, but broader than, that targeted by the antitrust laws and different in kind from that resulting from the underlying predicate acts.
A brief look at the legislative history makes clear that the antitrust laws in no relevant respect constrain our analysis or preclude formulation of an independent RICO-injury requirement. When Senator Hruska first introduced to Congress the predecessor to RICO, he proposed an amendment to the Sherman Act that would have prohibited the investment or use of intentionally unreported income from one line of business to establish, operate, or invest in another line of business. S. 2048, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967). After studying the provision, the American Bar Association issued a report that, while acknowledging the effects of organized crime’s infiltration of legitimate business, stated a preference for a *512provision separate from the antitrust laws. See 115 Cong. Rec. 6994 (1969). According to the report:
“By placing the antitrust-type enforcement and recovery procedures in a separate statute, a commingling of criminal enforcement goals with the goals of regulating competition is avoided.
“Moreover, the use of antitrust laws themselves as a vehicle for combating organized crime could create inappropriate and unnecessary obstacles in the way of persons injured by organized crime who might seek treble damage recovery. Such a private litigant would have to contend with a body of precedent — appropriate in a purely antitrust context — setting strict requirements on questions such as ‘standing to sue’ and ‘proximate cause.’” Id., at 6995.
Congress subsequently decided not to pursue an addition to the antitrust laws but instead to fashion a wholly separate criminal statute. If in fact that decision was made in response to the ABA’s statement and not to other political concerns, it may be interpreted at most as a rejection of antitrust standing requirements. Court-developed standing rules define the requisite proximity between the plaintiff’s injury and the defendant’s antitrust violation. See Blue Shield of Virginia v. McCready, 457 U. S. 465, 476 (1982) (discussing antitrust standing rules developed in the Federal Circuits). Thus, at most we may read the early legislative history to eschew wholesale adoption of the particular nexus requirements that limit the class of potential antitrust plaintiffs. Courts that read this history to bar any analogy to the antitrust laws simply read too much into the scant evidence available to us. In particular, courts that read this history to bar an injury requirement akin to “antitrust” injury are in error. The requirement of antitrust injury, as articulated in Brunswick Corp. v. Pueblo Bowl-O-Mat, Inc., 429 U. S. 477 (1977), differs in kind from the standing requirement to *513which the ABA referred and, in fact, had not been articulated at the time of the ABA comments.
At the same time, courts that believe civil RICO doctrine should mirror civil antitrust doctrine also read too much into the legislative history. It is absolutely clear that Congress intended to adopt antitrust remedies, such as civil actions by the Government and treble damages. The House of Representatives added the civil provision to Title IX in response to suggestions from the ABA and Congressmen that there be a remedy “similar to the private damage remedy found in the anti-trust laws,” Organized Crime Control: Hearings on S. 30 and Related Proposals, before Subcommittee No. 5 of the House Committee on the Judiciary, 91st Cong., 2d Sess., 520 (1970) (statement of Rep. Steiger) (hereinafter House Hearings); see also id., at 543 (statement of Edward L. Wright, ABA president-elect) (suggesting an amendment “to include the additional civil remedy of authorizing private damage suits based upon the concept of Section 4 of the Clayton (Antitrust) Act”); 116 Cong. Rec. 35295 (1970) (remarks of Rep. Poff, chief spokesman for the bill) (explaining bill’s adoption of the antitrust remedy for use against organized crime). The decision to adopt antitrust remedies does not, however, compel the conclusion that Congress intended to adopt substantive antitrust doctrine. Courts that construe these references to the antitrust laws as indications of Congress’ intent to adopt the substance of antitrust doctrine also read too much into too little language.
C
While the foregoing establishes that Congress sought to adopt remedies akin to those used in antitrust law — such as civil government enforcement — and to reject antitrust standing rules, other portions of the legislative history reveal just what Congress intended the substantive dimensions of the civil action to be. Quite simply, its principal target was the economic power of racketeers, and its toll on legitimate busi*514nessmen. To this end, Congress sought to fill a gap in the civil and criminal laws and to provide new remedies broader than those already available to private or government antitrust plaintiffs, different from those available to government and private citizens under state and federal laws, and significantly narrower than those adopted by the Court today.
In 1967, Senator Hruska proposed two bills, S. 2048 and S. 2049, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., which were designed in part to implement recommendations of the President’s Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Justice (the Katzenbach Commission) on the fight against organized crime. See 113 Cong. Rec. 17998-18001 (1967). The former bill proposed an amendment to the Sherman Act prohibiting the investment or use of unreported income derived from one line of business in another business. Id., at 17999. The latter bill, which was separate from the Sherman Act, prohibited the acquisition of a business interest with income derived from criminal activity. Ibid. Representative Poff introduced similar bills in the House of Representatives. See H. R. 11266, H. R. 11268, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. (1967); 113 Cong. Rec. 17976 (1967).
Introducing S. 2048, Senator Hruska explained that “[b]y limiting its application to intentionally unreported income, this proposal highlights the fact that the evil to be curbed is the unfair competitive advantage inherent in the large amount of illicit income available to organized crime.” Id., at 17999 (emphasis added). He described how organized crime had infiltrated a wide range of businesses, and he observed that “[i]n each of these instances, large amounts of cash coupled with threats of violence, extortion, and similar techniques were utilized by mobsters to achieve their desired objectives: monopoly control of these enterprises.” Id., at 17998 (emphasis added). He identified four means by which control of legitimate business had been acquired:
“First. Investing concealed profits acquired from gambling and other illegal enterprises.
*515“Second. Accepting business interests in payment of the owner’s gambling debts.
“Third. Foreclosing on usurious loans.
“Fourth. Using various forms of extortion.” Id., at 17998-17999.
The Senator then explained how this infiltration takes its toll:
“The proper functioning of a free economy requires that economic decisions be made by persons free to exercise their own judgment. Force or fear limits choice, ultimately reduces quality, and increases prices. When organized crime moves into a business, it brings all the techniques of violence and intimidation which it used in its illegal businesses. Competitors are eliminated and customers confined to sponsored suppliers. Its effect is even more unwholesome than other monopolies because its position does not rest on economic superiority.” Id., at 17999.
Congress never took action on these bills.
In 1969, Senator McClellan introduced the Organized Crime Control Act, which altered numerous criminal law areas such as grand juries, immunity, and sentencing, but which contained no provision like that now known as RICO. See S. 30, 91st Cong., 1st Sess.; 115 Cong. Rec. 769 (1969). Shortly thereafter, Senator Hruska introduced the Criminal Activities Profits Act. S. 1623, 91st Cong., 1st Sess.; 115 Cong. Rec. 6995-6996 (1969). He explained that S. 1623 was designed to synthesize the earlier two bills (S. 2048 and S. 2049) while placing the “unified whole” outside the Sherman Act in response to the ABA’s concerns. According to the Senator, the bill was meant to attack “the economic power of organized crime and its exercise of unfair competition with honest businessmen,” and to address “[t]he power of organized crime to establish a monopoly within numerous business fields” and the impact on the free market and honest *516competitors of “a racketeer dominated venture.” Id., at 6993 (emphasis added).
As introduced, S. 1623 contained a provision for a private treble-damages action; the language of that provision was virtually identical to that in § 1964(c), and it likely served as the model for § 1964(c). See id., at 6996. Explaining this provision, Senator Hruska said:
“In addition to this criminal prohibition, the bill also creates civil remedies for the honest businessman who has been damaged by unfair competition from the racketeer businessman. Despite the willingness of the courts to apply the Sherman Anti-Trust Act to organized crime activities, as a practical matter the legitimate businessman does not have adequate civil remedies available under that act. This bill fills that gap.” Id., at 6993 (emphasis added).
The Senate did not act directly on either S. 30 or S. 1623. Instead, Senators McClellan and Hruska jointly introduced S. 1861, the Corrupt Organizations Act of 1969, 91st Cong., 1st Sess.; 115 Cong. Rec. 9568-9571, which combined features of the two other bills and added to them. The new bill expanded the list of offenses that would constitute “racketeering activity” and required that the proscribed conduct be committed through a pattern of “racketeering activity.” It did not, however, contain a private civil remedy provision, but only authorization for an injunctive action brought by the Attorney General. Senator McClellan thereafter requested that the provisions of S. 1861 be incorporated by amendment into the broad Organized Crime Control Act, S. 30. See 115 Cong. Rec. 9566-9571 (1969).
In December 1969, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported on the Organized Crime Control Act, S. 30, as amended to include S. 1861 as Title IX, “Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations.” Title IX, it is clear, was *517aimed at precisely the same evil that Senator Hruska had targeted in 1967 — the infiltration of legitimate business by organized crime. According to the Committee Report, the Title
“has as its purpose the elimination of the infiltration of organized crime and racketeering into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce. It seeks to achieve this objective by the fashioning of new criminal and civil remedies and investigative procedures.” S. Rep. No. 91-617, p. 76 (1969).
In language taken virtually verbatim from the earlier floor statements of Senator Hruska, the Report described the extraordinary range of legitimate businesses and unions that had been infiltrated by racketeers, and the means by which the racketeers sought to profit from the infiltration. It described “scams” involving bankruptcy and insurance fraud, and the use of “force or fear” to secure a monopoly in the service or product of the business, and it summed up: “When the campaign is successful, the organization begins to extract a premium price from customers.” Id., at 77.
Similarly, Senator Byrd spoke in favor of Title IX and gave other examples of the “awesome power” of racketeers and their methods of operation. He described, for example, how one racketeer had gained a foothold in a detergent company and then had used arson and murder to try to get the A & P Tea Co. to buy a detergent that A & P had tested and rejected. 116 Cong. Rec. 607 (1970). As another example, he explained that racketeers would corner the market on a good or service and then withhold it from a businessman until he surrendered his business or made some other related economic concession. Ibid. In each of these cases, I note, the racketeer engaged in criminal acts in order to accomplish a commercial goal — e. g., to destroy competition, create a monopoly, or infiltrate a legitimate business. See also id., at 602 (statement of Sen. Hruska) (“[Organized crime] employs *518physical brutality, fear and corruption to intimidate competitors and customers to achieve increased sales and profits”) (emphasis added). In sum, “[scrutiny of the Senate Report . . . establishes without a doubt a single dominating purpose of the Senate in proposing the RICO statute: ‘Title IX represents the committee’s careful efforts to fashion new remedies to deal with the infiltration of organized crime into legitimate organizations operating in interstate commerce.’” ABA Report 105.
The bill passed the Senate after a short debate by a vote of 73 to 1, without a treble-damages provision, and it was then considered by the House. In hearings before the House Judiciary Committee, it was suggested that the bill should include “the additional civil remedy of authorizing private damage suits based upon the concept of Section 4 of the Clayton Act.” House Hearings, at 543-544 (statement of Edward Wright, ABA president-elect); see also id., at 520 (statement of Rep. Steiger) (suggesting addition of a private civil damages remedy). Before reporting the bill favorably in September 1970, the House Judiciary Committee made one change to the civil remedy provision — it added a private treble-damages provision to the civil remedies already available to the Government; the Committee accorded this change only a single statement in the Committee Report: “The title, as amended, also authorizes civil treble damage suits on the part of private parties who are injured.” H. R. Rep. No. 91-1549, p. 35 (1970). Three Congressmen dissented from the Report. Their views are particularly telling because, with language that is narrow compared to the extraordinary scope the civil provision has acquired, these three challenged the possible breadth and abuse of the private civil remedy by plaintiff-competitors:
“Indeed, [§ 1964(c)] provides invitation for disgruntled and malicious competitors to harass innocent business*519men engaged in interstate commerce by authorizing private damage suits. A competitor need only raise the claim that his rival has derived gains from two games of poker, and, because this title prohibits even the Indirect use’ of such gains — a provision with tremendous outreach-litigation is begun. What a protracted, expensive trial may not succeed in doing, the adverse publicity may well accomplish — destruction of the rival’s business.” Id., at 187 (emphasis added).
The bill then returned to the Senate, which passed it without a conference, apparently to assure passage during the session. Thus, the private remedy at issue here slipped quietly into the statute, and its entrance evinces absolutely no intent to revolutionize the enforcement scheme, or to give undue breadth to the broadly worded provisions — provisions Congress fully expected Government enforcers to narrow.
Putting together these various pieces, I can only conclude that Congress intended to give to businessmen who might otherwise have had no available remedy a possible way to recover damages for competitive injury, infiltration injury, or other economic injury resulting out of, but wholly distinct from, the predicate acts. Congress fully recognized that racketeers do not engage in predicate acts as ends in themselves; instead, racketeers threaten, burn, and murder in order to induce their victims to act in a way that accrues to the economic benefit of the racketeer, as by ceasing to compete, or agreeing to make certain purchases. Congress’ concern was not for the direct victims of the racketeers’ acts, whom state and federal laws already protected, but for the competitors and investors whose businesses and interests are harmed or destroyed by racketeers, or whose competitive positions decline because of infiltration in the relevant market. Its focus was on the victims of the extraordinary economic power that racketeers are able to acquire through a wide *520range of illicit methods. Indeed, that is why Congress provided for recovery only for injury to business or property— that is, commercial injuries — and not for personal physical or emotional injury.
The only way to give effect to Congress’ concern is to require that plaintiffs plead and prove that they suffered RICO injury — injury to their competitive, investment, or other business interests resulting from the defendant’s conduct of a business or infiltration of a business or a market, through a pattern of racketeering activity. As I shall demonstrate, this requirement is manageable, and it puts the statute to the use to which it was addressed. In addition, this requirement is faithful to the language of the statute, which does not appear to provide recovery for injuries incurred by reason of individual predicate acts. It also avoids most of the “extraordinary uses” to which the statute has been put, in which legitimate businesses that have engaged in two criminal acts have been labeled “racketeers,” have faced treble-damages judgments in favor of the direct victims, and often have settled to avoid the destructive publicity and the resulting harm to reputation. These cases take their toll; their results distort the market by saddling legitimate businesses with uncalled-for punitive bills and undeserved labels. To allow punitive actions and significant damages for injury beyond that which the statute was intended to target is to achieve nothing the statute sought to achieve, and ironically to injure many of those lawful businesses that the statute sought to protect. Under such circumstances, I believe this Court is derelict in its failure to interpret the statute in keeping with the language and intent of Congress.
Several lower courts have remarked, however, that a “RICO injury” requirement, while perhaps contemplated by the statute, defies definition. I disagree. The following series of examples, culled in part from the legislative history of the RICO statute, illustrates precisely what does and does not fall within this definition.
*521First. If a “racketeer” uses “[t]hreats, arson and assault ... to force competitors out of business and obtain larger shares of the market,” House Hearings, at 106 (statement of Sen. McClellan), the threats, arson, and assault represent the predicate acts. The pattern of those acts is designed to accomplish, and accomplishes, the goal of monopolization. Competitors thereby injured or forced out of business could allege “RICO” injury and recover damages for lost profits. So, too, purchasers of the racketeer’s goods or services, who are forced to buy from the racketeer/monopolist at higher prices, and whose businesses therefore are injured, might recover damages for the excess costs of doing business. The direct targets of the predicate acts — whether competitors, suppliers, or others — could recover for damages flowing from the predicate acts themselves, but under state or perhaps other federal law, not RICO.
Second. If a “racketeer” uses arson and threats to induce honest businessmen to pay protection money, or to purchase certain goods, or to hire certain workers, the targeted businessmen could sue to recover for injury to their business and property resulting from the added costs. This would be so if they were the direct victims of the predicate acts or if they had reacted to offenses committed against other businessmen. In each case, the predicate acts were committed in order to accomplish a certain end — e. g., to induce the prospective plaintiffs to take action to the economic benefit of the racketeer; in each case the result would have taken a toll on the competitive position of the prospective plaintiff by increasing his costs of doing business.
At the same time, the plaintiffs could not recover under RICO for the direct damages from the predicate acts. They could not, for example, recover for the cost of the building burned, or for personal injury resulting from the threat. Indeed, compensation for this latter injury is barred already by RICO’s exclusion of personal injury claims. As in the previ*522ous example, these injuries are amply protected by state-law damages actions.
Third. If a “racketeer” infiltrates and obtains control of a legitimate business either through fraud, foreclosure on usurious loans, extortion, or acceptance of business interests in payment of gambling debts, the honest investor who is thereby displaced could bring a civil RICO action claiming infiltration injury resulting from the infiltrator’s pattern of predicate acts that enabled him to gain control. Thereafter, if the enterprise conducts its business through a pattern of racketeering activity to enhance its profits or perpetuate its economic power, competitors of that enterprise could bring civil RICO actions alleging injury by reason of the enhanced commercial position the enterprise has obtained from its unlawful acts, and customers forced to purchase from sponsored suppliers could recover their added costs of doing business. At the same time, the direct victims of the activity — for example, customers defrauded by an infiltrated bank — could not recover under civil RICO. The bank does not, of course, thereby escape liability. The customers simply must rely on the existing causes of action, usually under state law.
Alternatively, if the infiltrated enterprise operates a legitimate business to a businessman’s competitive disadvantage because of the enterprise’s strong economic base derived from perpetration of predicate acts, the competitor could bring a civil RICO action alleging injury to his competitive position. The predicate acts then would have enabled the “enterprise” to gain a competitive advantage that brought harm to the plaintiff-competitor. Again, the direct victims of the predicate acts whose profits were invested in the “legitimate enterprise,” would not be able to recover damages under civil RICO for injury resulting from the predicate acts alone.
These examples are not exclusive, and if this formulation were adopted, lower courts would, of course, have the oppor*523tunity to smooth numerous rough edges. The examples are designed simply to illustrate the type of injury that civil RICO was, to my mind, designed to compensate. The construction I describe offers a powerful remedy to the honest businessmen with whom Congress was concerned, who might have had no recourse against a “racketeer” prior to enactment of the statute. At the same time, this construction avoids both the theoretical and practical problems outlined in Part I. Under this view, traditional state-law claims are not federalized; federal remedial schemes are not inevitably displaced or superseded; and, consequently, ordinary commercial disputes are not misguidedly placed within the scope of civil RICO.2
Ill
The Court today permits two civil actions for treble damages to go forward that are not authorized either by the language and legislative history of the civil RICO statute, or by the policies that underlay passage of that statute. In so doing, the Court shirks its well-recognized responsibility to assure that Congress’ intent is not thwarted by maintenance of unintended litigation, and it does so based on an unfounded and ill-considered reading of a statutory provision. Because I believe the provision at issue is susceptible of a narrower interpretation that comports both with the statutory language and the legislative history, I dissent.

[This opinion applies also to No. 84-822, American National Bank & Trust Company of Chicago et al. v. Haroco, Inc., et al, post, p. 606.]

 Section 1964(e) provides:
“Any person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter may sue therefor in any appropriate United States district court and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.”
Section 4 of the Clayton Act, 15 U. S. C. § 15, provides in relevant part:
“[A]ny person who shall be injured in his business or property by reason of anything forbidden in the antitrust laws may sue therefor in any district court of the United States in the district in which the defendant resides or is found or has an agent, without respect to the amount in controversy, and shall recover three-fold the damages by him sustained, and the cost of suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.”

 The analysis in my dissent would lead to the dismissal of the civil RICO claims at stake here. I thus do not need to decide whether a civil RICO action can proceed only after a criminal conviction. See ante, at 488-493.