Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/10-277.pdf
Page Number: 13.0

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

9 

Opinion of the Court 

easy  to  misread,  since  “[a]ny  competently  crafted  class
complaint literally raises common ‘questions.’ ”  Nagareda,
Class  Certification  in  the  Age  of  Aggregate  Proof,  84 
N. Y. U. L. Rev.  97,  131–132  (2009).    For  example:  Do  all 
of us plaintiffs indeed work for Wal-Mart?  Do our manag-
ers  have  discretion  over  pay?  Is  that  an  unlawful  em-
ployment practice?  What remedies should we get?  Recit-
ing  these  questions  is  not  sufficient  to  obtain  class
certification.  Commonality  requires  the  plaintiff  to  dem-
onstrate  that  the  class  members  “have  suffered  the  same 
injury,” Falcon, supra, at 157.  This does not mean merely 
that  they  have  all  suffered  a  violation  of  the  same  pro-
vision  of  law.    Title  VII,  for  example,  can  be  violated  in 
many  ways—by  intentional  discrimination,  or  by  hiring
and  promotion  criteria  that  result  in  disparate  impact, 
and  by  the  use  of  these  practices  on  the  part  of  many
different  superiors  in  a  single  company.    Quite  obviously,
the  mere  claim  by  employees  of  the  same  company  that 
they have suffered a Title VII injury, or even a disparate-
impact  Title  VII  injury,  gives  no  cause  to  believe  that  all
their  claims  can  productively  be  litigated  at  once.  Their 
claims  must  depend  upon  a  common  contention—for  ex-
ample,  the  assertion  of  discriminatory  bias  on  the  part  of 
the same supervisor.  That common contention, moreover, 
must  be  of  such  a  nature  that  it  is  capable  of  classwide
resolution—which  means  that  determination  of  its  truth 
or falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the valid-
ity of each one of the claims in one stroke. 

“What matters to class certification . . . is not the rais-
ing  of  common 
‘questions’—even  in  droves—but, 
rather  the  capacity  of  a  classwide  proceeding  to  gen-

—————— 

con, 457 U. S. 147, 157–158, n. 13 (1982).  In light of our disposition of 
the  commonality  question,  however,  it  is  unnecessary  to  resolve 
whether  respondents  have  satisfied  the  typicality  and  adequate-
representation requirements of Rule 23(a).