Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/10-277.pdf
Page Number: 23.0

Cite as:  564 U. S. ____ (2011) 

19 

Opinion of the Court 

analysis.  It  criticizes  our  focus  on  the  dissimilarities  be-
tween  the  putative  class  members  on  the  ground  that
we  have  “blend[ed]”  Rule  23(a)(2)’s  commonality  require-
ment  with  Rule  23(b)(3)’s  inquiry  into  whether  common
questions “predominate” over individual ones.  See post, at 
8–10  (GINSBURG, J.,  concurring  in  part  and  dissenting  in 
part).  That is not so.  We quite agree that for purposes of 
Rule 23(a)(2) “ ‘[e]ven a single [common] question’ ” will do, 
post,  at  10,  n. 9  (quoting  Nagareda,  The  Preexistence
Principle  and  the  Structure  of  the  Class  Action,  103 
Colum.  L. Rev.  149,  176,  n.  110  (2003)).  We  consider 
dissimilarities  not in  order  to  determine  (as Rule  23(b)(3)
requires)  whether  common  questions  predominate,  but  in 
order  to  determine  (as  Rule  23(a)(2)  requires)  whether
there is “[e]ven a single [common] question.”  And there is 
not  here.    Because  respondents  provide  no  convincing 
proof of a companywide discriminatory pay and promotion 
policy,  we  have  concluded  that  they  have  not  established 
the existence of any common question.10 

In  sum,  we  agree  with  Chief  Judge  Kozinski  that  the

members of the class: 

“held  a  multitude  of  different  jobs,  at  different  levels
of  Wal-Mart’s  hierarchy,  for  variable  lengths  of  time, 
in 3,400 stores, sprinkled across 50 states, with a ka-
leidoscope of supervisors (male and female), subject to
a  variety  of  regional  policies  that  all  differed. . . . 
Some thrived while others did poorly.  They have little 
in common but their sex and this lawsuit.”  603 F. 3d, 

—————— 

10 For this reason, there is no force to the dissent’s attempt to distin-
guish  Falcon  on  the  ground  that  in  that  case  there  were  “ ‘no  common 
questions of law or fact’ between the claims of the lead plaintiff and the
applicant  class ”  post,  at  9,  n. 7  (quoting  Falcon,  457  U. S.,  at  162 
(Burger,  C. J.,  concurring  in  part  and  dissenting  in  part)).    Here  also 
there is nothing to unite all of the plaintiffs’ claims,  since (contrary to 
the  dissent’s  contention,  post,  at  9,  n. 7),  the  same  employment  prac-
tices do not “touch and concern all members of the class.”