The federal courts have long struggled to articulate a set of coherent standards for who may assert rights under a federal statute. Apart from the constitutional limitations of the judicial power under Article III, courts have until recently addressed this question under a series of freestanding “prudential” rules governing standing to sue. The Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Lexmark International v. Static Control Components marked a sea change, holding that the federal courts may not decline to assert jurisdiction for prudential reasons and that standing to sue under a federal statute depends on whom Congress intended to authorize to sue. But Lexmark raised as many questions as it answered. In the same breath that it declared statutory standing a matter of congressional intent, the Court held that proximate cause-a creature of the common law of tort-generally defines the limits of federal statutory claims. Subsequent decisions applying this rule have extrapolated the Court’s decisional law from narrow and specific settings to provide a new, trans-substantive limitation on standing to assert federal statutory rights.

This Note traces the proximate cause element of statutory standing to decisions interpreting the Clayton Act and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act-decisions that were inextricably bound to the legislative history and structure of those specific statutes-and concludes that application of these decisions to other federal statutes is both inconsistent with the reasoning in these decisions and contrary to the Court’s stated purpose in Lexmark to effectuate congressional intent. Right or wrong, however, this new proximate cause requirement of statutory standing illustrates one process by which federal common law originates: the extrapolation of statutory precedents into trans-substantive rules. By exploring the origins and contours of this new proximate cause requirement, this Note attempts to provide guidance to practitioners asserting claims under federal statutes and to scholars seeking to understand the development of federal common law.