Opinion of the Court
Further, the injurious effects of the racketeering activity largely manifested in California. Smagin obtained a judgment in California because that is where Yegiazaryan lives, and where Smagin had thus hoped to collect. The rights that the California judgment provides to Smagin exist only in California, including the right to obtain postjudgment discovery, the right to seize assets in California, and the right to seek other appropriate relief from the California District Court. The alleged RICO scheme thwarted those rights, thereby undercutting the orders of the California District Court and Smagin’s efforts to collect on Yegiazaryan’s assets in California.
In sum, Smagin’s interests in his California judgment against Yegiazaryan, a California resident, were directly injured by racketeering activity either taken in California or directed from California, with the aim and effect of subverting Smagin’s rights to execute on that judgment in California. On the Court’s contextual approach, those allegations suffice to state a domestic injury in this suit.
III
Petitioners argue that a contextual approach is inconsistent with certain common-law principles, which instead favor their bright-line rule. According to petitioners, because Smagin has alleged an “economic injury” or an “injury in intangible property,” Brief in Opposition 15–16, courts should look to common-law principles governing “the situs” of such injuries, when determining whether those injuries are foreign or domestic. Specifically, as to economic injuries, petitioners point to the Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws §377 (1934), from which they discern the principle that “a fraud plaintiff suffers an economic loss at the plaintiff’s domicile.” Brief for Petitioners 36; see also Sack v. Low, 478 F. 2d 360, 366 (CA2 1973) (Under the First Restatement, “loss from fraud is deemed to be suffered where
