Syllabus
(c) The Court agrees with Smagin and the Ninth Circuit that the domestic-injury inquiry is context specific and turns largely on the facts alleged in the complaint. Specifically, courts should look to the circumstances surrounding the alleged injury to assess whether it arose in the United States. Here, that means looking to the nature of the alleged injury, the racketeering activity that directly caused it, and the injurious aims and effects of that activity.
The context-specific approach is most consistent with RJR Nabisco. The Court’s statements in RJR Nabisco that the domestic-injury requirement “does not mean that foreign plaintiffs may not sue under RICO,” 579 U. S., at 353, n. 12, and that “application of [the] rule in any given case will not always be self-evident,” point toward a case-specific inquiry that considers the particular facts surrounding the alleged injury, id., at 354. That approach also better reflects the requirement’s origin in step two, which assesses whether there is a domestic application of a statute by looking to the statute’s focus. RJR Nabisco implied that §1964(c)’s focus is injuries in “business or property by reason of a violation of” RICO’s substantive provisions. So understood, §1964(c)’s focus is not on the isolated injury but on the injury as a product of racketeering activity. This requires courts to look to the circumstances surrounding the injury to see if those circumstances sufficiently ground the injury in the United States. Pp. 8–10.
(d) The circumstances surrounding Smagin’s injury make clear that the injury arose in the United States. Smagin’s alleged injury is his inability to collect his judgment. Much of the alleged racketeering activity that caused that injury occurred in the United States. And while some of Yegiazaryan’s scheme to avoid collection occurred abroad, the scheme was directed toward frustrating the California judgment. Further, the injurious effects of the racketeering activity largely manifested in California. Smagin obtained a judgment in California where Yegiazaryan lives, and the rights provided by that judgment exist only in California. 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. Under a contextual approach, Smagin’s allegations suffice to state a domestic injury. Pp. 10–11.
