Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/20pdf/20-222_2c83.pdf
Page Number: 3

Cite as:  594 U. S. ____ (2021) 

3 

Syllabus 

tification “by showing . . . that the particular misrepresentation at is-
sue did not affect the stock’s market price.”  573 U. S., at 279 (emphasis 
added).  These references to a defendant’s “showing” require a defend-
ant to do more than produce some evidence relevant to price impact;
the defendant must “in fact” “seve[r] the link” between a misrepresen-
tation and the price paid by the plaintiff.  Moreover, Halliburton II’s 
holding that plaintiffs need not directly prove price impact to invoke 
the Basic presumption, 573 U. S., at 278–279, would be negated in al-
most every case if a defendant could shift the burden of persuasion to
the plaintiffs by mustering any competent evidence of a lack of price 
impact (including, for example, the generic nature of the alleged mis-
representations).   Thus, the best reading of the Court’s precedents as-
signs defendants the burden of persuasion to prove a lack of price im-
pact  by  a  preponderance  of  the  evidence.    Even  so,  that  allocated 
burden will be outcome determinative only in the rare case in which 
the evidence is in perfect equipoise.  Pp. 9–12. 

955 F. 3d 254, vacated and remanded. 

BARRETT,  J.,  delivered  the  opinion  of  the  Court,  in  which  ROBERTS, 
C. J., and BREYER, KAGAN, and KAVANAUGH, JJ., joined in full; in which 
THOMAS, ALITO, and GORSUCH, JJ., joined as to Parts I and II–A; and in 
which SOTOMAYOR, J., joined as to Parts I, II–A–1, and II–B.  SOTOMAYOR, 
J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.  GORSUCH, 
J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which 
THOMAS and ALITO, JJ., joined.