522
Opinion of the Court
averments in the complaint will, on motion, suffer a judgment on the pleadings that untruthful denials could have avoided. Rule 12(c). And a defendant who fails to submit affidavits creating a genuine issue of fact in response to a motion for summary judgment will suffer a dismissal that false affidavits could have avoided. Rule 56(e). In all of those cases, as under the McDonnell Douglas framework, perjury may purchase the defendant a chance at the fact-finder—though there, as here, it also carries substantial risks, see Rules 11 and 56(g); 18 U. S. C. § 1621.
The dissent repeatedly raises a procedural objection that is impressive only to one who mistakes the basic nature of the McDonnell Douglas procedure. It asserts that "the Court now holds that the further enquiry [i. e., the inquiry that follows the employer's response to the prima facie case] is wide open, not limited at all by the scope of the employer's proffered explanation." Post, at 533. The plaintiff cannot be expected to refute "reasons not articulated by the employer, but discerned in the record by the factfinder." Ante, at 534. He should not "be saddled with the tremendous disadvantage of having to confront, not the defined task of proving the employer's stated reasons to be false, but the amorphous requirement of disproving all possible nondiscriminatory reasons that a factfinder might find lurking in the record." Post, at 534-535. "Under the scheme announced today, any conceivable explanation for the employer's actions that might be suggested by the evidence, however unrelated to the employer's articulated reasons, must be addressed by [the] plaintiff." Post, at 537. These statements imply that the employer's "proffered explanation," his "stated reasons," his "articulated reasons," somehow exist apart from the record—in some pleading, or perhaps in some formal, nontestimonial statement made on behalf of the defendant to the factfinder. ("Your honor, pursuant to McDonnell Douglas the defendant hereby formally asserts,
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