Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/10-277.pdf
Page Number: 19

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

15 

Opinion of the Court 

and presumptively reasonable way of doing business—one 
that  we  have  said  “should  itself  raise  no  inference  of  dis-
criminatory conduct,” Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 
487 U. S. 977, 990 (1988).

To  be  sure,  we  have  recognized  that,  “in  appropriate
cases,”  giving  discretion  to  lower-level  supervisors  can  be 
the  basis  of  Title  VII  liability  under  a  disparate-impact
theory—since  “an  employer’s  undisciplined  system  of 
subjective  decisionmaking  [can  have]  precisely  the  same
effects as a system pervaded by impermissible intentional 
discrimination.”  Id., at 990–991.  But the recognition that
this  type  of  Title  VII  claim  “can”  exist  does  not  lead  to 
the  conclusion  that  every  employee  in  a  company  using  a 
system of discretion has such a claim in common.  To the 
contrary,  left  to  their  own  devices  most  managers  in  any 
corporation—and  surely  most  managers  in  a  corporation
that  forbids  sex  discrimination—would  select  sex-neutral, 
performance-based  criteria  for  hiring  and  promotion  that 
produce no actionable disparity at all.  Others may choose to
reward  various  attributes  that  produce  disparate  impact—
such  as  scores  on  general  aptitude  tests  or  educational
achievements,  see  Griggs  v.  Duke  Power  Co.,  401  U. S. 
424,  431–432  (1971).  And  still  other  managers  may  be
guilty  of  intentional  discrimination  that  produces  a  sex-
based  disparity.  In  such  a  company,  demonstrating  the 
invalidity of one manager’s use of discretion will do noth-
ing  to  demonstrate  the  invalidity  of  another’s.    A  party
seeking  to  certify  a  nationwide  class  will  be  unable  to
show  that  all  the  employees’  Title  VII  claims  will  in  fact 
depend on the answers to common questions.

Respondents have not identified a common mode of exer-
cising  discretion  that  pervades  the  entire  company—aside 
from their reliance on Dr. Bielby’s social frameworks analy-
sis that we have rejected.  In a company of Wal-Mart’s size
and  geographical  scope,  it  is  quite  unbelievable  that  all
managers would exercise their discretion in a common way