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Text: 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).