518
Opinion of the Court
racially premised." Id., at 805, n. 18 (emphasis added). The statement in question also contradicts Burdine's repeated assurance (indeed, its holding) regarding the burden of persuasion: "The ultimate burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all times with the plaintiff." 450 U. S., at 253. "The plaintiff retains the burden of persuasion." Id., at 256.7 And lastly, the statement renders inexplicable Burdine's explicit reliance, in describing the shifting burdens of McDonnell Douglas, upon authorities setting forth the classic law of presumptions we have described earlier, including Wigmore's Evidence, 450 U. S., at 253, 254, n. 7, 255, n. 8, James' and Hazard's Civil Procedure, id., at 255, n. 8, Federal Rule of Evidence 301, ibid., Maguire's Evidence, Common Sense and Common Law, ibid., and Thayer's Preliminary Treatise on Evidence, id., at 255, n. 10. In light of these inconsistencies, we think that the dictum at issue here must be regarded as an inadvertence, to the extent that it describes disproof of the defendant's reason as a totally independent, rather than an auxiliary, means of proving unlawful intent.
In sum, our interpretation of Burdine creates difficulty with one sentence; the dissent's interpretation causes many portions of the opinion to be incomprehensible or deceptive. But whatever doubt Burdine might have created was eliminated by Aikens. There we said, in language that cannot reasonably be mistaken, that "the ultimate question [is] discrimination vel non." 460 U. S., at 714. Once the defend-7 The dissent's reading leaves some burden of persuasion on the plaintiff, to be sure: the burden of persuading the factfinder that the employer's explanation is not true. But it would be beneath contempt for this Court, in a unanimous opinion no less, to play such word games with the concept of "leaving the burden of persuasion upon the plaintiff." By parity of analysis, it could be said that holding a criminal defendant guilty unless he comes forward with a credible alibi does not shift the ultimate burden of persuasion, so long as the Government has the burden of persuading the factfinder that the alibi is not credible.
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