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Text: The crux of this case is commonality—the rule requiring a plaintiff to show that “there are questions of law or fact common to the class.” Rule 23(a)(2).5 That language is 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 erate common answers apt to drive the resolution of the litigation. Dissimilarities within the proposed

class are what have the potential to impede the gen

eration of common answers.” Nagareda, supra, at 132.

Rule 23 does not set forth a mere pleading standard. A party seeking class certification must affirmatively dem onstrate his compliance with the Rule—that is, he must be prepared to prove that there are in fact sufficiently nu merous parties, common questions of law or fact, etc. We recognized in Falcon that “sometimes it may be necessary for the court to probe behind the pleadings before coming to rest on the certification question,” 457 U. S., at 160, and that certification is proper only if “the trial court is satis fied, after a rigorous analysis, that the prerequisites of Rule 23(a) have been satisfied,” id., at 161; see id., at 160 (“[A]ctual, not presumed, conformance with Rule 23(a) remains . . . indispensable”). Frequently that “rigorous analysis” will entail some overlap with the merits of the plaintiff ’s underlying claim. That cannot be helped. “ ‘[T]he class determination generally involves considera tions that are enmeshed in the factual and legal issues comprising the plaintiff ’s cause of action.’ ” Falcon, supra, at 160 (quoting Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U. S. 463, 469 (1978); some internal quotation marks omitted).6 Nor is there anything unusual about that consequence: The necessity of touching aspects of the merits in order to resolve preliminary matters, e.g., jurisdiction and venue, is a familiar feature of litigation. See Szabo v. Bridgeport Machines, Inc., 249 F. 3d 672, 676–677 (CA7 2001) (Easterbrook, J.).

In this case, proof of commonality necessarily overlaps with respondents’ merits contention that Wal-Mart en gages in a pattern or practice of discrimination.7 That is so because, in resolving an individual’s Title VII claim, the crux of the inquiry is “the reason for a particular employ ment decision,” Cooper v. Federal Reserve Bank of Rich mond, 467 U. S. 867, 876 (1984). Here respondents wish to sue about literally millions of employment decisions at once. Without some glue holding the alleged reasons for all those decisions together, it will be impossible to say that examination of all the class members’ claims for relief will produce a common answer to the crucial question why was I disfavored.