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Page Number: 27

8  GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP, INC. v. ARKANSAS TEACHER 

RETIREMENT SYSTEM 
Opinion of GORSUCH, J. 

reaffirmed Basic’s holding that a plaintiff need not show re-
liance “directly,” but may do so “presumptively” by carrying
the burden of proving the four Basic factual predicates.  573 
U. S., at 278.  A decision holding that the defendant merely 
bore the burden of producing evidence suggesting a lack of 
price impact at class certification, the Court now submits, 
“would  be  nearly  indistinguishable  from  the  regime  that 
Halliburton II rejected.”  Ante, at 11. 

That much does not follow either.  Like Basic, Hallibur-
ton II concerned what facts a plaintiff must produce to gen-
erate  a  presumption  of  reliance.    This  case  is  about  what 
defendants  must  do  to  rebut  that  presumption.  Deciding
one does not resolve the other.  To say these issues are “in-
distinguishable”  is  to  miss  the  entire  point  of  a  presump-
tion:  It allows the plaintiff to state a prima facie case based
on inference and requires the defendant to bear the burden
of producing evidence in response; once the defendant does 
so, the presumption has served its purpose and drops from 
the case.  At that point, the factfinder now has the benefit 
of evidence from both sides and must decide the case with 
reference to the plaintiff ’s burden of persuasion.  Nothing
in  Halliburton  II  suggests  a  departure  from  these  princi-
ples,  let  alone  that  some  burden  of  persuasion  secretly 
shifts to the defendant in a plaintiff ’s claim for securities
fraud.  To the contrary, that decision arose in the class cer-
tification context and expressly reaffirmed that “[t]he Basic 
presumption  does  not  relieve  plaintiffs  of  the  burden  of 
proving”  they  have  satisfied  “the  predominance  require-
ment of Rule 23(b)(3).”  573 U. S., at 276. 

The Court has no answer to any of this.  Instead, it replies 
only by touting the fact that two Court of Appeals decisions
have read Basic and Halliburton II as it does.  Ante, at 11. 
But this is a non sequitur.  The Court does not suggest that
a pair of lower court opinions represents some robust judi-
cial consensus.  Nor does the Court suggest those opinions 
free us from having to interpret the law for ourselves.  After