Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/10-277.pdf
Page Number: 21.0

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

17 

Opinion of the Court 

respondents’  statistical  proof  fails.    Even  if  it  established 
(as  it  does  not)  a  pay  or  promotion  pattern  that  differs
from the nationwide figures or the regional figures in all of 
Wal-Mart’s  3,400  stores,  that  would  still  not demonstrate 
that  commonality  of  issue  exists.    Some  managers  will 
claim  that  the  availability  of  women,  or  qualified  women, 
or interested women, in their stores’ area does not mirror 
the national or regional statistics.  And almost all of them 
will  claim  to  have  been  applying  some  sex-neutral,
performance-based  criteria—whose  nature  and  effects
will  differ  from  store  to  store.  In  the  landmark  case  of 
ours  which  held  that  giving  discretion  to  lower-level  su-
pervisors  can  be  the  basis  of  Title  VII  liability  under  a 
disparate-impact theory, the plurality opinion conditioned 
that holding on the corollary that merely proving that the
discretionary  system  has  produced  a  racial  or  sexual 
disparity  is  not  enough.  “[T]he  plaintiff  must  begin  by
identifying  the  specific  employment  practice  that  is  chal-
lenged.”  Watson,  487  U. S.,  at  994;  accord,  Wards  Cove 
Packing  Co.  v.  Atonio,  490  U. S.  642,  656  (1989)  (approv-
ing  that  statement),  superseded  by  statute  on  other 
grounds,  42  U. S. C.  §2000e–2(k).    That  is  all  the  more 
necessary  when  a  class  of  plaintiffs  is  sought  to  be  certi-
fied.  Other  than  the  bare  existence  of  delegated  discre-
tion,  respondents  have  identified  no  “specific  employment
practice”—much  less  one  that  ties  all  their  1.5  million 
claims together.  Merely showing that Wal-Mart’s policy of
discretion  has  produced  an  overall  sex-based  disparity
does not suffice. 

Respondents’  anecdotal  evidence  suffers  from  the  same
defects, and in addition is too weak to raise any inference 
that  all  the  individual,  discretionary  personnel  decisions 
are  discriminatory.    In  Teamsters  v.  United  States,  431 
U. S.  324  (1977),  in  addition  to  substantial  statistical 
evidence of company-wide discrimination, the Government
(as plaintiff) produced about 40 specific accounts of racial