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Page Number: 24

20 

WAL-MART STORES, INC. v. DUKES 

Opinion of the Court 

at 652 (dissenting opinion). 

III 
We  also  conclude  that  respondents’  claims  for  backpay
were  improperly  certified  under  Federal  Rule  of  Civil
Procedure  23(b)(2).  Our  opinion  in  Ticor  Title  Ins.  Co.  v. 
Brown,  511  U. S.  117,  121  (1994)  (per  curiam)  expressed
serious  doubt  about  whether  claims  for  monetary  relief 
may  be  certified  under  that  provision.    We  now  hold  that 
they may not, at least where (as here) the monetary relief
is not incidental to the injunctive or declaratory relief. 

A 

Rule  23(b)(2)  allows  class  treatment  when  “the  party 
opposing  the  class  has acted  or  refused  to  act  on  grounds
that  apply  generally  to  the  class,  so  that  final  injunctive 
relief  or  corresponding  declaratory  relief  is  appropriate
respecting  the  class  as a  whole.”    One  possible  reading  of 
this  provision  is  that  it  applies  only  to  requests  for  such
injunctive or declaratory relief and does not authorize the
class certification of monetary claims at all.  We need not 
reach that broader question in this case, because we think 
that,  at  a  minimum,  claims  for  individualized  relief  (like
the  backpay  at  issue  here)  do  not  satisfy  the  Rule.    The 
key  to  the  (b)(2)  class  is  “the  indivisible  nature  of  the 
injunctive  or  declaratory  remedy  warranted—the  notion 
that the conduct is such that it can be enjoined or declared
unlawful only as to all of the class members or as to none 
of them.”  Nagareda, 84 N. Y. U. L. Rev., at 132.  In other 
words, Rule 23(b)(2) applies only when a single injunction 
or  declaratory  judgment  would  provide  relief  to  each 
member of the class.  It does not authorize class certifica-
tion when each individual class member would be entitled 
to  a  different  injunction  or  declaratory  judgment  against 
the defendant.  Similarly, it does not authorize class certi-
fication  when  each  class  member  would  be  entitled  to  an