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Text: Reaching beyond these six established categories, some lower courts have recognized a "virtual representation" exception to the rule against nonparty preclusion. Decisions of these courts, however, have been far from consistent. See 18A Wright & Miller § 4457, p. 513 (virtual representation lacks a "clear or coherent theory"; decisions applying it have "an episodic quality"). Some Circuits use the label, but define "virtual representation" so that it is no broader than the recognized exception for adequate representation. See, e.g., Becherer v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 193 F.3d 415, 423, 427 (C.A.6 1999). But other courts, including the Eighth, Ninth, and D.C. Circuits, apply multifactor tests for virtual representation that permit nonparty preclusion in cases that do not fit within any of the established exceptions. See supra, at 2168-2170, and n. 3.

The D.C. Circuit, the FAA, and Fairchild have presented three arguments in support of an expansive doctrine of virtual representation. We find none of them persuasive.

The D.C. Circuit purported to ground its virtual representation doctrine in this Court's decisions stating that, in some circumstances, a person may be bound by a judgment if she was adequately represented by a party to the proceeding yielding that judgment. See 490 F.3d, at 970-971. But the D.C. Circuit's definition of "adequate representation" strayed from the meaning our decisions have attributed to that term.

In Richards, we reviewed a decision by the Alabama Supreme Court holding that a challenge to a tax was barred by a judgment upholding the same tax in a suit filed by different taxpayers. 517 U.S., at 795-797, 116 S. Ct. 1761. The plaintiffs in the first suit "did not sue on behalf of a class," their complaint "did not purport to assert any claim against or on behalf of any nonparties," and the judgment "did not purport to bind" nonparties. Id., at 801, 116 S. Ct. 1761. There was no indication, we emphasized, that the court in the first suit "took care to protect the interests" of absent parties, or that the parties to that litigation "understood their suit to be on behalf of absent [parties]." Id., at 802, 116 S. Ct. 1761. In these circumstances, we held, the application of claim preclusion was inconsistent with "the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment." Id., at 797, 116 S. Ct. 1761.

The D.C. Circuit stated, without elaboration, that it did not "read Richards to hold a nonparty . . . adequately represented only if special procedures were followed [to protect the nonparty] or the party to the prior suit understood it was representing the nonparty." 490 F.3d, at 971. As the D.C. Circuit saw this case, Herrick adequately represented Taylor for two principal reasons: Herrick had a strong incentive to litigate; and Taylor later hired Herrick's lawyer, suggesting Taylor's "satisfaction with the attorney's performance in the prior case." Id., at 975.

The D.C. Circuit misapprehended Richards. As just recounted, our holding that the Alabama Supreme Court's application of res judicata to nonparties violated due process turned on the lack of either special procedures to protect the nonparties' interests or an understanding by the concerned parties that the first suit was brought in a representative capacity. See Richards, 517 U.S., at 801-802, 116 S. Ct. 1761. Richards thus established that representation is "adequate" for purposes of nonparty preclusion only if (at a minimum) one of these two circumstances is present.

We restated Richards' core holding in South Central Bell Telephone Co. v. Alabama, 526 U.S. 160, 119 S. Ct. 1180, 143 L. Ed. 2d 258 (1999). In that case, as in Richards, the Alabama courts had held that a judgment rejecting a challenge to a tax by one group of taxpayers barred a subsequent suit by a different taxpayer. See 526 U.S., at 164-165, 119 S. Ct. 1180. In South Central Bell, however, the nonparty had notice of the original suit and engaged one of the lawyers earlier employed by the original plaintiffs. See id., at 167-168, 119 S. Ct. 1180. Under the D.C. Circuit's decision in Taylor's case, these factors apparently would have sufficed to establish adequate representation. See 490 F.3d, at 973-975. Yet South Central Bell held that the application of res judicata in that case violated due process. Our inquiry came to an end when we determined that the original plaintiffs had not understood themselves to be acting in a representative capacity and that there had been no special procedures to safeguard the interests of absentees. See 526 U.S., at 168, 119 S. Ct. 1180.

Our decisions recognizing that a nonparty may be bound by a judgment if she was adequately represented by a party to the earlier suit thus provide no support for the D.C. Circuit's broad theory of virtual representation.

Fairchild and the FAA do not argue that the D.C. Circuit's virtual representation doctrine fits within any of the recognized grounds for nonparty preclusion. Rather, they ask us to abandon the attempt to delineate discrete grounds and clear rules altogether. Preclusion is in order, they contend, whenever "the relationship between a party and a non-party is `close enough' to bring the second litigant within the judgment." Brief for Respondent Fairchild 20. See also Brief for Respondent FAA 22-24. Courts should make the "close enough" determination, they urge, through a "heavily fact-driven" and "equitable" inquiry. Brief for Respondent Fairchild 20. See also Brief for Respondent FAA 22 ("there is no clear test" for nonparty preclusion; rather, an "equitable and fact-intensive" inquiry is demanded (internal quotation marks omitted)). Only this sort of diffuse balancing, Fairchild and the FAA argue, can account for all of the situations in which nonparty preclusion is appropriate.

We reject this argument for three reasons. First, our decisions emphasize the fundamental nature of the general rule that a litigant is not bound by a judgment to which she was not a party. See, e.g., Richards, 517 U.S., at 798-799, 116 S. Ct. 1761; Martin, 490 U.S., at 761-762, 109 S. Ct. 2180. Accordingly, we have endeavored to delineate discrete exceptions that apply in "limited circumstances." Id., at 762, n. 2, 109 S. Ct. 2180. Respondents' amorphous balancing test is at odds with the constrained approach to nonparty preclusion our decisions advance.

Resisting this reading of our precedents, respondents call up three decisions they view as supportive of the approach they espouse. Fairchild quotes our statement in Coryell v. Phipps, 317 U.S. 406, 411, 63 S. Ct. 291, 87 L. Ed. 363 (1943), that privity "turns on the facts of particular cases." See Brief for Respondent Fairchild 20. That observation, however, scarcely implies that privity is governed by a diffuse balancing test.[9] Fairchild also cites Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Ill. Foundation, 402 U.S. 313, 334, 91 S. Ct. 1434, 28 L. Ed. 2d 788 (1971), which stated that estoppel questions turn on "the trial courts' sense of justice and equity." See Brief for Respondent Fairchild 20. This passing statement, however, was not made with nonparty preclusion in mind; it appeared in a discussion recognizing district courts' discretion to limit the use of issue preclusion against persons who were parties to a judgment. See Blonder-Tongue, 402 U.S., at 334, 91 S. Ct. 1434.

The FAA relies on United States v. Des Moines Valley R. Co., 84 F. 40 (C.A.8 1897), an opinion we quoted with approval in Schendel, 270 U.S., at 619-620, 46 S. Ct. 420. Des Moines Valley was a quiet title action in which the named plaintiff was the United States. The Government, however, had "no interest in the land" and had "simply permitted [the landowner] to use its name as the nominal plaintiff." 84 F., at 42. The suit was therefore barred, the appeals court held, by an earlier judgment against the landowner. As the court explained: "[W]here the government lends its name as a plaintiff . . . to enable one private person to maintain a suit against another," the government is "subject to the same defenses which exist . . . against the real party in interest." Id., at 43. Des Moines Valley, the FAA contended at oral argument, demonstrates that it is sometimes appropriate to bind a nonparty in circumstances that do not fit within any of the established grounds for nonparty preclusion. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 31-33. Properly understood, however, Des Moines Valley is simply an application of the fifth basis for nonparty preclusion described above: A party may not use a representative or agent to relitigate an adverse judgment. See supra, at 2172-2173.[10] We thus find no support in our precedents for the lax approach to nonparty preclusion advocated by respondents.

Our second reason for rejecting a broad doctrine of virtual representation rests on the limitations attending nonparty preclusion based on adequate representation. A party's representation of a nonparty is "adequate" for preclusion purposes only if, at a minimum: (1) the interests of the nonparty and her representative are aligned, see Hansberry, 311 U.S., at 43, 61 S. Ct. 115; and (2) either the party understood herself to be acting in a representative capacity or the original court took care to protect the interests of the nonparty, see Richards, 517 U.S., at 801-802, 116 S. Ct. 1761; supra, at 2173-2174. In addition, adequate representation sometimes requires (3) notice of the original suit to the persons alleged to have been represented, see Richards, 517 U.S., at 801, 116 S. Ct. 1761.[11] In the class-action context, these limitations are implemented by the procedural safeguards contained in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23.

An expansive doctrine of virtual representation, however, would "recogniz[e], in effect, a common-law kind of class action." Tice, 162 F.3d, at 972 (internal quotation marks omitted). That is, virtual representation would authorize preclusion based on identity of interests and some kind of relationship between parties and nonparties, shorn of the procedural protections prescribed in Hansberry, Richards, and Rule 23. These protections, grounded in due process, could be circumvented were we to approve a virtual representation doctrine that allowed courts to "create de facto class actions at will." Tice, 162 F.3d, at 973.

Third, a diffuse balancing approach to nonparty preclusion would likely create more headaches than it relieves. Most obviously, it could significantly complicate the task of district courts faced in the first instance with preclusion questions. An all-things-considered balancing approach might spark wide-ranging, time-consuming, and expensive discovery tracking factors potentially relevant under seven- or five-prong tests. And after the relevant facts are established, district judges would be called upon to evaluate them under a standard that provides no firm guidance. See Tyus, 93 F.3d, at 455 (conceding that "there is no clear test for determining the applicability of" the virtual representation doctrine announced in that case). Preclusion doctrine, it should be recalled, is intended to reduce the burden of litigation on courts and parties. Cf. Montana, 440 U.S., at 153-154, 99 S. Ct. 970. "In this area of the law," we agree, "`crisp rules with sharp corners' are preferable to a round-about doctrine of opaque standards." Bittinger v. Tecumseh Products Co., 123 F.3d 877, 881 (C.A.6 1997).

Finally, relying on the Eighth Circuit's decision in Tyus, 93 F.3d, at 456, the FAA maintains that nonparty preclusion should apply more broadly in "public-law" litigation than in "private-law" controversies. To support this position, the FAA offers two arguments. First, the FAA urges, our decision in Richards acknowledges that, in certain cases, the plaintiff has a reduced interest in controlling the litigation "because of the public nature of the right at issue." Brief for Respondent FAA 28. When a taxpayer challenges "an alleged misuse of public funds" or "other public action," we observed in Richards, the suit "has only an indirect impact on [the plaintiff's] interests." 517 U.S., at 803, 116 S. Ct. 1761. In actions of this character, the Court said, "we may assume that the States have wide latitude to establish procedures . . . to limit the number of judicial proceedings that may be entertained." Ibid.

Taylor's FOIA action falls within the category described in Richards, the FAA contends, because "the duty to disclose under FOIA is owed to the public generally." See Brief for Respondent FAA 34. The opening sentence of FOIA, it is true, states that agencies "shall make [information] available to the public." 5 U.S.C. § 552(a) (2006 ed.). Equally true, we have several times said that FOIA vindicates a "public" interest. E.g., National Archives and Records Admin. v. Favish, 541 U.S. 157, 172, 124 S. Ct. 1570, 158 L. Ed. 2d 319 (2004). The Act, however, instructs agencies receiving FOIA requests to make the information available not to the public at large, but rather to the "person" making the request. § 552(a)(3)(A). See also § 552(a)(3)(B) ("In making any record available to a person under this paragraph, an agency shall provide the record in any [readily reproducible] form or format requested by the person . . . ." (emphasis added)); Brief for National Security Archive et al. as Amici Curiae 10 ("Government agencies do not systematically make released records available to the general public."). Thus, in contrast to the public-law litigation contemplated in Richards, a successful FOIA action results in a grant of relief to the individual plaintiff, not a decree benefiting the public at large.

Furthermore, we said in Richards only that, for the type of public-law claims there envisioned, States are free to adopt procedures limiting repetitive litigation. See 517 U.S., at 803, 116 S. Ct. 1761. In this regard, we referred to instances in which the first judgment foreclosed successive litigation by other plaintiffs because, "under state law, [the suit] could be brought only on behalf of the public at large." Id., at 804, 116 S. Ct. 1761.[12]Richards spoke of state legislation, but it appears equally evident that Congress, in providing for actions vindicating a public interest, may "limit the number of judicial proceedings that may be entertained." Id., at 803, 116 S. Ct. 1761. It hardly follows, however, that this Court should proscribe or confine successive FOIA suits by different requesters. Indeed, Congress' provision for FOIA suits with no statutory constraint on successive actions counsels against judicial imposition of constraints through extraordinary application of the common law of preclusion.

The FAA next argues that "the threat of vexatious litigation is heightened" in public-law cases because "the number of plaintiffs with standing is potentially limitless." Brief for Respondent FAA 28 (internal quotation marks omitted). FOIA does allow "any person" whose request is denied to resort to federal court for review of the agency's determination. 5 U.S.C. § 552(a)(3)(A), (4)(B) (2006 ed.). Thus it is theoretically possible that several persons could coordinate to mount a series of repetitive lawsuits.

But we are not convinced that this risk justifies departure from the usual rules governing nonparty preclusion. First, stare decisis will allow courts swiftly to dispose of repetitive suits brought in the same circuit. Second, even when stare decisis is not dispositive, "the human tendency not to waste money will deter the bringing of suits based on claims or issues that have already been adversely determined against others." Shapiro 97. This intuition seems to be borne out by experience: The FAA has not called our attention to any instances of abusive FOIA suits in the Circuits that reject the virtual-representation theory respondents advocate here.