delivered the opinion of the Court.

This case presents the question whether a party who has had issues of fact adjudicated adversely to it in an equitable action may be collaterally estopped from relitigating the same issues before a jury in a subsequent legal action brought against it by a new party.

The respondent brought this stockholder’s class action against the petitioners in a Federal District Court. The complaint alleged that the petitioners, Parklane Hosiery Co., Inc. (Parklane), and 13 of its officers, directors, and stockholders, had issued a materially false and misleading proxy statement in connection with a merger.1 The proxy statement, according to the complaint, had violated §§ 14 (a), 10 (b), and 20 (a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 895, 891, 899, as amended, 15 U. S. C.. §§ 78n (a), 78j (b), and 78t (a), as well as various rules and regulations promulgated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The complaint sought damages, rescission of the merger, and recovery of costs.

Before this action came to trial, the SEC filed suit against the same defendants in the Federal District Court, alleging that the proxy statement that had been issued by Parklane was materially false and misleading in essentially the same respects as those that had been alleged in the respondent’s complaint. Injunctive relief was requested. After a 4-day *325trial, the District Court found that the proxy statement was materially false and misleading in the respects alleged, and entered a declaratory judgment to that effect. SEC v. Parklane Hosiery Co., 422 F. Supp. 477. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed this judgment. 558 F. 2d 1083.

The respondent in the present case then moved for partial summary judgment against the petitioners, asserting that the petitioners were collaterally estopped from relitigating the issues that had been resolved against them in the action brought by the SEC.2 The District Court denied the motion on the ground that such an application of collateral estoppel would deny the petitioners their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit reversed, holding that a party who has had issues of fact determined against him after a full and fair opportunity to litigate in a non jury trial is collaterally estopped from obtaining a subsequent jury trial of these same issues of fact. 565 F. 2d 815. The appellate court concluded that “the Seventh Amendment preserves the right to jury trial only with respect to issues of fact, [and] once those issues have been fully and fairly adjudicated in a prior proceeding, nothing remains for trial, either with or without a jury.” Id., at 8.19. Because of an intercircuit conflict,3 we granted certiorari. 435 U. S. 1006.

*326I

The threshold question to be considered is whether, quite apart from the right to a jury trial under the Seventh Amendment, the petitioners can be precluded from relitigating facts resolved adversely to them in a prior equitable proceeding with another party under the general law of collateral estop-pel. Specifically, we must determine whether a litigant who was not a party to a prior judgment may nevertheless use that judgment “offensively” to prevent a defendant from relitigat-ing issues resolved in the earlier proceeding.4

A

Collateral estoppel, like the related doctrine of res judicata,5 has the dual purpose of protecting litigants from the burden of relitigating an identical issue with the same party or his privy and of promoting judicial economy by preventing needless litigation. Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U. S. 313, 328-329. Until relatively recently, however, the scope of collateral estoppel was limited by the doctrine of mutuality of parties. Under this mutuality doctrine, neither party could use a prior judg*327ment as an estoppel against the other unless both parties were bound by the judgment.6 Based on the premise that it is somehow unfair to allow a party to use a prior judgment when he himself would not be so bound,7 the mutuality requirement provided a party who had litigated and lost in a previous action an opportunity to relitigate identical issues with new parties.

By failing to recognize the obvious difference in position between a party who has never litigated an issue and one who has fully litigated and lost, the mutuality requirement was criticized almost from its inception.8 Recognizing the validity of this criticism, the Court in Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, supra, abandoned the mutuality requirement, at least in cases where a patentee seeks to relitigate the validity of a patent after a federal court in a previous lawsuit has already declared it invalid.9 The *328“broader question” before the Court, however, was “whether it is any longer tenable to afford a litigant more than one full and fair opportunity for judicial resolution of the same issue.” 402 U. S., at 328. The Court strongly suggested a negative answer to that question:

“In any lawsuit where a defendant, because of the mutuality principle, is forced to present a complete defense on the merits to a claim which the plaintiff has fully litigated and lost in a prior action, there is an arguable misallocation of resources. To the extent the defendant in the second suit may not win by asserting, without contradiction, that the plaintiff had fully and fairly, but unsuccessfully, litigated the same claim in the prior suit, the defendant’s time and money are diverted from alternative uses — productive or otherwise — to relitigation of a decided issue. And, still assuming that the issue was resolved correctly in the first suit, there is reason to be concerned about the plaintiff’s allocation of resources. Permitting repeated litigation of the same issue as long as the supply of unrelated defendants holds out reflects either the aura of the gaming table or 'a lack of discipline and of disinterestedness on the part of the lower courts, hardly a worthy or wise basis for fashioning rules of procedure.’ Kerotest Mfg. Co. v. C-O-Two Co., 342 U. S. 180, 185 (1952). Although neither judges, the parties, nor the adversary system performs perfectly in all cases, the requirement of determining whether the party against whom an estoppel is asserted had a full and fair opportunity to litigate is a most significant safeguard.” Id., at 329.10

*329B

The Blonder-Tongue case involved defensive use of collateral estoppel — a plaintiff was estopped from asserting a claim that the plaintiff had previously litigated and lost against another defendant. The present case, by contrast, involves offensive use of collateral estoppel — a plaintiff is seeking to estop a defendant from relitigating the issues which the defendant previously litigated and lost against another plaintiff. In both the offensive and defensive use situations, the party against whom estoppel is asserted has litigated and lost in an earlier action. Nevertheless, several reasons have been advanced why the two situations should be treated differently.11

First, offensive use of collateral estoppel does not promote judicial economy in the same manner as defensive use does. Defensive use of collateral estoppel precludes a plaintiff from relitigating identical issues by merely “switching adversaries.” Bernhard v. Bank of America Nat. Trust & Savings Assn., 19 Cal. 2d, at 813, 122 P. 2d, at 895.12 Thus defensive collateral estoppel gives a plaintiff a strong incentive to join *330all potential defendants in the first action if possible. Offensive use of collateral estoppel, on the other hand, creates precisely the opposite incentive. Since a plaintiff will be able to rely on a previous judgment against a defendant but will not be bound by that judgment if the defendant wins, the plaintiff has every incentive to adopt a “wait and see” attitude, in the hope that the first action by another plaintiff will result in a favorable judgment. E. g., Nevarov v. Caldwell, 161 Cal. App. 2d 762, 767-768, 327 P. 2d 111, 116; Reardon v. Allen, 88 N. J. Super. 560, 571-572, 213 A. 2d 26, 32. Thus offensive use of collateral estoppel will likely increase rather than decrease the total amount of litigation, since potential plaintiffs will have everything to gain and nothing to lose by not intervening in the first action.13

A second argument against offensive use of collateral estop-pel is that it may be unfair to a defendant. If a defendant in the first action is sued for small or nominal damages, he may have little incentive to defend vigorously, particularly if future suits are not foreseeable. The Evergreens v. Nunan, 141 F. 2d 927, 929 (CA2); cf. Berner v. British Commonwealth Pac. Airlines, 346 F. 2d 532 (CA2) (application of offensive collateral estoppel denied where defendant did not appeal an adverse judgment awarding damages of $35,000 and defendant was later sued for over $7 million). Allowing offensive collateral estoppel may also be unfair to a' defendant if the judgment relied upon as a basis for the estoppel is itself inconsistent with one or more previous judgments in favor of the defendant.14 Still another situation where it might be *331unfair to apply offensive estoppel is where the second action affords the defendant procedural opportunities unavailable in the first action that could readily cause a different result.15

C

We have concluded that the preferable approach for dealing with these problems in the federal courts is not to preclude the use of offensive collateral estoppel, but to grant trial courts broad discretion to determine when it should be applied.16 The general rule should be that in cases where a plaintiff could easily have joined in the earlier action or where, either for the reasons discussed above or for other reasons, the application of offensive estoppel would be unfair to a defendant, a trial judge should not allow the use of offensive collateral estoppel.

In the present case, however, none of the circumstances that might justify reluctance to allow the offensive use of collateral estoppel is present. The application of offensive collateral *332estoppel will not here reward a private plaintiff who could have joined in the previous action, since the respondent probably could not have joined in the injunctive action brought by the SEC even had he so desired.17 Similarly, there is no unfairness to the petitioners in applying offensive collateral estoppel in this case. First, in light of the serious allegations made in the SEC’s complaint against the petitioners, as well as the foreseeability of subsequent private suits that typically follow a successful Government judgment, the petitioners had every incentive to litigate the SEC lawsuit fully and vigorously.18 Second, the judgment in the SEC action was not inconsistent with any previous decision. Finally, there will in the respondent’s action be no procedural opportunities available to the petitioners that were unavailable in the first action of a •kind that might be likely to cause a different result.19

We conclude, therefore, that none of the considerations that would justify a refusal to allow the use of offensive collateral estoppel is present in this case. Since the petitioners received a “full and fair” opportunity to litigate their claims in the *333SEC action, the contemporary law of collateral estoppel leads inescapably to the conclusion that the petitioners are collaterally estopped from relitigating the question of whether the proxy statement was materially false and misleading.

II

The question that remains is whether, notwithstanding the law of collateral estoppel, the use of offensive collateral estoppel in this case would violate the petitioners’ Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial.20

A

“[T]he thrust of the [Seventh] Amendment was to preserve the right to jury trial as it existed in 1791.” Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 193. At common law, a litigant was not entitled to have a jury determine issues that had been previously adjudicated by a chancellor in equity. Hopkins v. Lee, 6 Wheat. 109; Smith v. Kernochen, 7 How. 198, 217-218; Brady v. Daly, 175 U. S. 148, 158-159; Shapiro & Coquillette, The Fetish of Jury Trial in Civil Cases: A Comment on Rachal v. Hill, 85 Harv. L. Rev. 442, 448-458 (1971).21

Recognition that an equitable determination could have collateral-estoppel effect in a subsequent legal action was the major premise of this Court’s decision in Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500. In that case the plaintiff sought a declaratory judgment that certain arrangements between it *334and the defendant were not in violation of the antitrust laws, and asked for an injunction to prevent the defendant from instituting an antitrust action to challenge the arrangements. The defendant denied the allegations .and counterclaimed for treble damages under the antitrust laws, requesting a trial by jury of the issues common to both the legal and equitable claims. The Court of Appeals upheld denial of the request, but this Court reversed, stating:

“[T]he effect of the action of the District Court could be, as the Court of Appeals believed, 'to limit the petitioner’s opportunity fully to try to a jury every issue which has a bearing upon its treble damage suit,’ for determination of the issue of clearances by the judge might ‘operate either by way of res judicata or collateral estoppel so as to conclude both parties with respect thereto at the subsequent trial of the treble damage claim.’ ” Id., at 504.

It is thus clear that the Court in the Beacon Theatres case thought that if an issue common to both legal and equitable claims was first determined by a judge, relitigation of the issue before a jury might be foreclosed by res judicata or collateral estoppel. To avoid this result, the Court held, that when legal and equitable claims are joined in the same action, the trial judge has only limited discretion in determining the sequence of trial and “that discretion . . . must, wherever possible, be exercised to preserve jury trial.” Id., at 510.22

Both the premise of Beacon Theatres, and the fact that it enunciated no more than a general prudential rule were confirmed by this Court’s decision in Katchen v. Landy, 382 U. S. 323. In that case the Court held that a bankruptcy court, sitting as a statutory court of equity, is empowered to adjudi*335cate equitable claims prior to legal claims, even though the factual issues decided in the equity action would have been triable by a jury under the Seventh Amendment if the legal claims had been adjudicated first. The Court stated:

“Both Beacon Theatres and Dairy Queen recognize that there might be situations in which the Court could proceed to resolve the equitable claim first even though the results might be dispositive of the issues involved in the legal claim.” Id., at 339.

Thus the Court in Katchen v. Landy recognized that an equitable determination can have collateral-estoppel effect in a subsequent legal action and that this estoppel does not violate the Seventh Amendment.

B

Despite the strong support to be found both in history and in the recent decisional law of this Court for the proposition that an equitable determination can have collateral-estoppel effect in a subsequent legal action, the petitioners argue that application of collateral estoppel in this case would nevertheless violate their Seventh Amendment right to a jury trial. The petitioners contend that since the scope of the Amendment must be determined by reference to the common law as it existed in 1791, and since the common law permitted collateral estoppel only where there was mutuality of parties, collateral estoppel cannot constitutionally be applied when such mutuality is absent.

The petitioners have advanced no persuasive reason, however, why the meaning of the Seventh Amendment should depend on whether or not mutuality of parties is present. A litigant who has lost because of adverse factual findings in an equity action is equally deprived of a jury trial whether he is estopped from relitigating the factual issues against the same party or a new party. In either case, the party against whom estoppel is asserted has litigated questions of fact, and has had the facts determined against him in an earlier proceeding. *336In either case there is no further factfinding function for the jury to perform, since the common factual issues have been resolved in the previous action. Cf. Ex parte Peterson, 253 U. S. 300, 310 (“No one is entitled in a civil case to trial by jury unless and except so far as there are issues of fact to be determined”).

The Seventh Amendment has never been interpreted in the rigid manner advocated by the petitioners. On the contrary, many procedural devices developed since 1791 that have diminished the civil jury’s historic domain have been found not to be inconsistent with the Seventh Amendment. See Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S. 372, 388-393 (directed verdict does not violate the Seventh Amendment); Gasoline Products Co. v. Champlin Refining Co., 283 U. S. 494, 497-498 (retrial limited to question of damages does not violate the Seventh Amendment even though there was no practice at common law for setting aside a verdict in part); Fidelity & Deposit Co. v. United States, 187 U. S. 315, 319-321 (summary judgment does not violate the Seventh Amendment).23

The Galloway case is particularly instructive. There the party against whom a directed verdict had been entered argued that the procedure was unconstitutional under the Seventh Amendment. In rejecting this claim, the Court said:

“The Amendment did not bind the federal courts to the exact procedural incidents or details of jury trial accord*337ing to the common law in 1791, any more than it tied them to the common-law system of pleading or the specific rules of evidence then prevailing. Nor were 'the rules of the common law’ then prevalent, including those relating to the procedure by which the judge regulated the jury’s role on questions of fact, crystallized in a fixed and immutable system. . . .

“The more logical conclusion, we think, and the one which both history and the previous decisions here support, is that the Amendment was designed to preserve the basic institution of jury trial in only its most fundamental elements, not the great mass of procedural forms and details, varying even then so widely among common-law jurisdictions.” 319 U. S., at 390, 392 (footnote omitted).

The law of collateral estoppel, like the law in other procedural areas defining the scope of the jury’s function, has evolved since 1791. Under the rationale of the Galloway case, these developments are not repugnant to the Seventh Amendment simply for the reason that they did not exist in 1791. Thus if, as we have held, the law of collateral estoppel forecloses the petitioners from relitigating the factual issues determined against them in the SEC action, nothing in the Seventh Amendment dictates a different result, even though because of lack of mutuality there would have been no collateral estoppel in 1791.24

The judgment of the Court of Appeals is

Affirmed.

dissenting.

It is admittedly difficult to be outraged about the treatment accorded by the federal judiciary to petitioners’ demand for a jury trial in this lawsuit. Outrage is an emotion all but *338impossible to generate with respeet to a corporate defendant in a securities fraud action, and this case is no exception. But the nagging sense of unfairness as to the way petitioners have been treated, engendered by the imprimatur placed by . the Court of Appeals on respondent’s “heads I win, tails you lose” theory of this litigation, is not dispelled by this Court’s antiseptic analysis of the issues in the case. It may be that if this Nation were to adopt a new Constitution today, the Seventh Amendment guaranteeing the right of jury trial in civil cases in federal courts would not be included among its provisions. But any present sentiment to that effect cannot obscure or dilute our obligation to enforce the Seventh Amendment, which was included in the Bill of Rights in 1791 and which has not since been repealed in the only manner provided by the Constitution for repeal of its provisions.

The right of trial by jury in civil cases at common law is fundamental to our history and jurisprudence. Today, however, the Court reduces this valued right, which Blackstone praised as “the glory of the English law,” to a mere “neutral” *339factor and in the name of procedural reform denies the right of jury trial to defendants in a vast number of cases in which defendants, heretofore, have enjoyed jury trials. Over 35 years ago, Mr. Justice Black lamented the “gradual process of judicial erosion which in one-hundred-fifty years has slowly worn away a major portion of the essential guarantee of the Seventh Amendment.” Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S. 372, 397 (1943) (dissenting opinion). Regrettably, the erosive process continues apace with today’s decision.1

I

The Seventh Amendment provides:

“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

The history of the Seventh Amendment has been amply documented by this Court and by legal scholars,2 and it would serve no useful purpose to attempt here to repeat all that has been written on the subject. Nonetheless, the decision of this case turns on the scope and effect of the Seventh Amendment, which, perhaps more than with any other provision of the Constitution, are determined by reference to the historical *340setting in which the Amendment was adopted. See Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S. 149, 152 (1973). It therefore is appropriate to pause to review, albeit briefly, the circumstances preceding and attending the adoption of the Seventh Amendment as a guide in ascertaining its application to the case at hand.

A

It is perhaps easy to forget, now more than 200 years removed from the events, that the right of trial by jury was held in such esteem by the colonists that its deprivation at the hands of the English was one of the important grievances leading to the break with England. See Sources and Documents Illustrating the American Revolution 1764-1788 and the Formation of the Federal Constitution 94 (S. Morison 2d ed. 1929); R. Pound, The Development of Constitutional Guarantees of Liberty 69-72 (1957); C. Ubbelohde, The Vice-Admiralty Courts and the American Revolution 208-211 (1960). The extensive use of vice-admiralty courts by colonial administrators to eliminate the colonists’ right of jury trial was listed among the specific offensive English acts denounced in the Declaration of Independence.3 And after *341war had broken out, all of the 13 newly formed States restored the institution of civil jury trial to its prior prominence; 10 expressly guaranteed the right in their state constitutions and the 3 others recognized it by statute or by common practice.4 Indeed, “[t]he right to trial by jury was probably the only one universally secured by the first American state constitutions . . . L. Levy, Legacy of Suppression: Freedom of Speech and Press in Early American History 281 (1960).5

One might justly wonder then why no mention of the right of jury trial in civil cases should have found its way into the Constitution that emerged from the Philadelphia Convention in 1787. Article III, § 2, cl. 3, merely provides that “The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury.” The omission of a clause protective of the civil jury right was not for lack of trying, however. Messrs. Pinckney and Gerry proposed to provide a clause securing the right of jury trial in civil cases, but their efforts failed.6 Several rea*342sons have been advanced for this failure. The Federalists argued that the practice of civil juries among the several States varied so much that it was too difficult to draft constitutional language to accommodate the different state practices. See Colgrove v. Battin, supra, at 153.7 Whatever the reason for the omission, however, it is clear that even before the delegates had left Philadelphia, plans were under way to attack the proposed Constitution on the ground that it failed to contain a guarantee of civil jury trial in the new federal courts. See R. Rutland, George Mason 91 (1961); Wolfram 662.

The virtually complete absence of a bill of rights in the proposed Constitution was the principal focus of the Anti-Federalists’ attack on the Constitution, and the lack of a provision for civil juries featured prominently in their arguments. See Parsons v. Bedford, 3 Pet. 433, 445 (1830). Their pleas struck a responsive chord in the populace, and the price exacted in many States for approval of the Constitution was the appending of a list of recommended amendments, chief among them a clause securing the right of jury trial in civil cases.8 Responding to the pressures for a civil jury *343guarantee generated during the ratification debates, the first Congress under the new Constitution at its first session in 1789 proposed to amend the Constitution by adding the following language: “In suits at common law, between man and man, the trial by jury, as one of the best securities to the rights of the people, ought to remain inviolate.” 1 Annals of Cong. 435 (1789). That provision, altered in language to what became the Seventh Amendment, was proposed by the Congress in 1789 to the legislatures of the several States and became effective with its ratification by Virginia on December 15, 1791.9

The foregoing sketch is meant to suggest what many of those who oppose the use of juries in civil trials seem to ignore. The founders of our Nation considered the right of trial by jury in civil cases an important bulwark against tyranny and corruption, a safeguard too precious to be left to the whim of the sovereign, or, it might be added, to that of the judiciary.10 Those who passionately advocated the right to a civil jury trial did not do so because they considered the jury a familiar procedural device that should be continued; the concerns for the institution of jury trial that led to the passages of the Declaration of Independence and to the Seventh Amendment were not animated by a belief that use of juries would lead to more efficient judicial administration. Trial by a jury of laymen rather than by the sovereign’s judges *344was important to the founders because juries represent' the layman’s common sense, the “passional elements in our nature,” and thus keep the administration of law in accord with the wishes and feelings of the community. 0. Holmes, Collected Legal Papers 237 (1920). Those who favored juries •believed that a jury would reach a result that a judge either could not or would not reach.11 It is with these values that underlie the Seventh Amendment in mind that the Court should, but obviously does not, approach the decision of this case.

B

The Seventh Amendment requires that the right of trial by jury be “preserved.” Because the Seventh Amendment demands preservation of the jury trial right, our cases have uniformly held that the content of the right must be judged by historical standards. E. g., Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S. 189, 193 (1974); Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S., at 155-156; Ross v. Bernhard, 396 U. S. 531, 533 (1970); Capital Traction Co. v. Hof, 174 U. S. 1, 8-9 (1899); Parsons v. Bedford, supra, at 446. Thus, in Baltimore & Carolina Line v. Redman, 295 U. S. 654, 657 (1935), the Court stated that “[t]he right of trial by jury thus preserved is the right which existed under the English common law when the Amendment was adopted.” *345And in Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474, 476 (1935), the Court held: “In order to ascertain the scope and meaning of the Seventh Amendment, resort must be had to the appropriate rules of the common law established at the time of the adoption of that constitutional provision in 1791.”12 If a jury would have been impaneled in a particular kind of case in 1791, then the Seventh Amendment requires a jury trial today, if either party so desires.

To be sure, it is the substance of the right of jury trial that is preserved, not the incidental or collateral effects of common-law practice in 1791. Walker v. New Mexico & S. P. R. Co., 165 U. S. 593, 596 (1897). “The aim of the Amendment, as this Court has held, is to preserve the substance of the common-law right of trial by jury, as distinguished from mere matters of form or procedure, and particularly to retain the common-law distinction between the province of the court and that of the jury. . . Baltimore & Carolina Line v. Redman, supra, at 657. Accord, Colgrove v. Battin, supra, at 156-157; Gasoline Products Co. v. Champlin Refining Co., 283 U. S. 494, 498 (1931); Ex parte Peterson, 253 U S. 300, 309 (1920). “The Amendment did not bind the federal courts to the exact procedural incidents or details of jury trial according to the common law of 1791, any more than it tied them to the common-law system of pleading or the specific rules of evidence then prevailing.” Galloway v. United States, 319 U. S., at 390.

To say that the Seventh Amendment does not tie federal courts to the exact procedure of the common law in 1791 does *346not imply, however, that any nominally “procedural’' change can be implemented, regardless of its impact on the functions of the jury. For to sanction creation of procedural devices which limit the province of the jury to a greater degree than permitted at common law in 1791 is in direct contravention of the Seventh Amendment. See Neely v. Martin K. Eby Constr. Co., 386 U. S. 317, 322 (1967); Galloway v. United States, supra, at 396; Dimick v. Schiedt, supra, at 487; Ex parte Peterson, supra, at 309-310. And since we deal here not with the common law qua common law but with the Constitution, no amount of argument that the device provides for more efficiency or more accuracy or is fairer will save it if the degree of invasion of the jury’s province is greater than allowed in 1791. To rule otherwise would effectively permit-judicial repeal of the Seventh Amendment because nearly any change in the province of the jury, no matter how drastic the diminution of its functions, can always be denominated “procedural reform.”

The guarantees of the Seventh Amendment will prove burdensome in some instances; the civil jury surely was a burden to the English governors who, in its stead, substituted the vice-admiralty court. But, as with other provisions of the Bill of Rights, the onerous nature of the protection is no license for contracting the rights secured by the Amendment. Because [m] aintenance of the jury as a fact-finding body is of such importance and occupies so firm a place in our history and jurisprudence . . . any seeming curtailment of the right to a jury trial should be scrutinized with the utmost care.’ ” Dimick v. Schiedt, supra, at 486, quoted in Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500, 501 (1959).

C

Judged by the foregoing principles, I think it is clear that petitioners were denied their Seventh Amendment right to a *347jury trial in this case. Neither respondent nor the Court doubts that at common law as it existed in 1791, petitioners would have been entitled in the private action to have a jury determine whether the proxy statement was false and misleading in the respects alleged. The reason is that at common law in 1791, collateral estoppel was permitted only where the parties in the first action were identical to, or in privity with, the parties to the subsequent action.13 It was not until 1971 that the doctrine of mutuality was abrogated by this Court in certain limited circumstances. Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U. S. 313.14 But developments in the judge-made doctrine of collateral estoppel, however salutary, cannot, consistent with the Seventh Amendment, contract in any material fashion the right to a jury trial that a defendant would have enjoyed in 1791. In the instant case, resort to the doctrine of collateral estoppel does more than merely contract the right to a jury trial: It eliminates the right entirely and therefore contravenes the Seventh Amendment.

The Court responds, however, that at common law “a litigant was not entitled to have a jury [in a subsequent action at law between the same parties] determine issues that had been previously adjudicated by a chancellor in equity,” and that “petitioners have advanced no persuasive reason . . . why the meaning of the Seventh Amendment should depend on *348whether or not mutuality of parties is present.” Ante, at 333, 335. But that is tantamount to saying that since a party would not be entitled to a jury trial if he brought an equitable action, there is no persuasive reason why he should receive a jury trial on virtually the same issues if instead he chooses to bring his lawsuit in the nature of a legal action. The persuasive reason is that the Seventh Amendment requires that a party’s right to jury trial which existed at common law be “preserved” from incursions by the government or the judiciary. Whether this Court believes that use of a jury trial in a particular instance is necessary, or fair or repetitive is simply irrelevant. If that view is “rigid,” it is the Constitution which commands that rigidity. To hold otherwise is to rewrite the Seventh Amendment so that a party is guaranteed a jury trial in civil cases unless this Court thinks that a jury trial would be inappropriate.

No doubt parallel “procedural reforms” could be instituted in the area of criminal jurisprudence, which would accomplish much the same sort of expedition of court calendars and conservation of judicial resources as would the extension of collateral estoppel in civil litigation. Government motions for summary judgment, or for a directed verdict in favor of the prosecution at the close of the evidence, would presumably save countless hours of judges’ and jurors’ time. It can scarcely be doubted, though, that such “procedural reforms” would not survive constitutional scrutiny under the jury trial guarantee of the Sixth Amendment. Just as the principle of separation of powers was not incorporated by the Framers into the Constitution in order to promote efficiency or dispatch in the business of government, the right to a jury trial was not guaranteed in order to facilitate prompt and accurate decision of lawsuits. The essence of that right lies in its insistence that a body of laymen not permanently attached to the sovereign participate along with the judge in the fact-*349finding necessitated by a lawsuit. And that essence is as much a part of the Seventh Amendment’s guarantee in civil cases as it is of the Sixth Amendment’s guarantee in criminal prosecutions. Cf. Thiel v. Southern Pacific Co., 328 U. S. 217, 220 (1946).

Relying on Galloway v. United States, Gasoline Products Co. v. Champlin Refining Co., and Fidelity & Deposit Co. v. United States, 187 U. S. 315 (1902), the Court seems to suggest that the offensive use of collateral estoppel in this case is permissible under the limited principle set forth above that a mere procedural change that does not invade the province of the jury and a defendant’s right thereto to a greater extent than authorized by the common law is permissible. But the Court’s actions today constitute a far greater infringement of the defendant’s rights than it ever before has sanctioned. In Galloway, the Court upheld the modern form of directed verdict against' a Seventh Amendment challenge, but it is clear that a similar form of directed verdict existed at common law in 1791. E. g., Beauchamp v. Borret, Peake 148, 170 Eng. Rep. 110 (N. P. 1792); Coupey v. Henley, 2 Esp. 540, 542, 170 Eng. Rep. 448, 449 (C. P. 1797).15 The modern form did not materially alter the function of the jury. Similarly, the modern device of summary judgment was found not to violate the Seventh Amendment because in 1791 a demurrer to the evidence, a procedural device substantially similar to summary judgment, was a common practice. E. g., Pawling v. United States, 4 Cranch 219, 221-222 (1808).16 *350The procedural devices of summary judgment and directed verdict are direct descendants of their common-law antecedents. They accomplish nothing more than could have been done at common law, albeit by a more cumbersome procedure. See also Montgomery Ward & Co. v. Duncan, 311 U. S. 243, 250 (1940). And while at common law there apparently was no practice of setting aside a verdict in part,17 the Court in Gasoline Products permitted a partial retrial of “distinct and separable” issues because the change in procedure would not impair the substance of the right to jury trial. 283 U. S., at 498. The parties in Gasoline Products still enjoyed the right to have a jury determine all issues of fact.

By contrast, the development of nonmutual estoppel is a substantial departure from the common law and its use in this case completely deprives petitioners of their right to have a jury determine contested issues of fact. I am simply unwilling to accept the Court’s presumption that the complete extinguishment of petitioners’ right to trial by jury can be justified as a mere change in “procedural incident or detail.” Over 40 years ago, Mr. Justice Sutherland observed in a not dissimilar case: “[T]his court in a very special sense is charged with the duty of construing and upholding the Constitution; and in the discharge of that important duty, it ever must be alert to see that a doubtful precedent be not extended by mere analogy to a different case if the result will be to weaken or subvert what it conceives to be a principle of the fundamental law of the land.” Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S., at 485.

*351II

Even accepting, arguendo, the majority’s position that there is no violation of the Seventh Amendment here, I nonetheless would not sanction the use of collateral estoppel in this case. The Court today holds:

“The general rule should be that in cases where a plaintiff could easily have joined in the earlier action or where, either for the reasons discussed above or for other reasons, the application of offensive estoppel would be unfair to a defendant, a trial judge should not allow the use of offensive collateral estoppel.” Ante, at 331.

In my view, it is “unfair” to apply offensive collateral estoppel where the party who is sought to be estopped has not had an opportunity to have the facts of his case determined by a jury. Since in this case petitioners were not entitled to a jury trial in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit,18 I would not estop them from relitigating the issues determined in the SEC suit before a jury in the private action. I believe that several factors militate in favor of this result.

First, the use of offensive collateral estoppel in this case runs counter to the strong federal policy favoring jury trials, even if it does not, as the majority holds, violate the Seventh Amendment. The Court’s decision in Beacon Theatres, Inc. v. Westover, 359 U. S. 500 (1950), exemplifies that policy. In Beacon Theatres the Court held that where both equitable and legal claims or defenses are presented in a single case, “only under the most imperative circumstances, circumstances which in view of the flexible procedures of the Federal Rules we cannot now anticipate, can the right to a jury trial of legal issues be lost through prior determination of equitable claims.” *352Id., at 510-511.19 And in Jacob v. New York, 315 U. S. 752, 752-753 (1942), the Court stated: “The right of jury trial in civil cases at common law is a basic and fundamental feature of our system of federal jurisprudence which is protected by the Seventh Amendment. A right so fundamental and sacred to the citizen, whether guaranteed by the Constitution or provided by statute, should be jealously guarded by the courts.” Accord, Simler v. Conner, 372 U. S. 221, 222 (1963); Byrd v. Blue Ridge Rural Electric Cooperative, Inc., 356 U. S. 525, 537-539 (1958) (strong federal policy in favor of juries requires jury trials in diversity cases, regardless of state practice). Today's decision will mean that in a large number of private cases defendants will no longer enjoy the right to jury trial.20 Neither the Court nor respondent has adverted or cited to any unmanageable problems that have resulted *353from according defendants jury trials in such cases. I simply see no “imperative circumstances” requiring this wholesale abrogation of jury trials.21

Second, I believe that the opportunity for a jury trial in the second action could easily lead to a different result from that obtained in the first action before the court and therefore that it is unfair to estop petitioners from relitigating the issues before a jury. This is the position adopted in the Restatement (Second) of Judgments, which disapproves of the application of offensive collateral estoppel where the defendant has an opportunity for a jury trial in the second lawsuit that was not available in the first action.22 The Court accepts the proposition that it is unfair to apply offensive collateral estoppel “where the second action affords the defendant procedural opportunities unavailable in the first action that could readily cause a different result.” Ante, at 331. Differences in discovery opportunities between the two actions are cited as examples of situations where it would be unfair to permit offensive collateral estoppel. Ante, at 331 n. 15. But in the Court’s view, the fact that petitioners would have been entitled to a jury trial in the present action is not such a “procedural opportunity]” because “the presence or absence of a jury as factfinder is basically neutral, quite unlike, for example, the *354necessity of defending the first lawsuit in an inconvenient forum.” Ante, at 332 n. 19 (emphasis added).

As is evident from the prior brief discussion of the development of the civil jury trial guarantee in this country, those who drafted the Declaration of Independence and debated so passionately the proposed Constitution during the ratification period, would indeed be astounded to learn that the presence or absence of a jury is merely “neutral,” whereas the availability of discovery, a device unmentioned in the Constitution, may be controlling. It is precisely because the Framers believed that they might receive a different result at the hands of a jury of their peers than at the mercy of the sovereign’s judges, that the Seventh Amendment was adopted. And I suspect that anyone who litigates cases before juries in the 1970’s would be equally amazed to hear of the supposed lack of distinction between trial by court and trial by jury. The Court can cite no authority in support of this curious proposition. The merits of civil juries have been long debated, but I suspect that juries have never been accused of being merely “neutral” factors.23

Contrary to the majority’s supposition, juries can make a difference, and our cases have, before today at least, recognized this obvious fact. Thus, in Colgrove v. Battin, 413 U. S., at 157, we stated that “the purpose of the jury trial in . . . civil cases [is] to assure a fair and equitable resolution of factual issues, Gasoline Products Go. v. Champlin Co., 283 U. S. 494, 498 (1931) ....’’ And in Byrd v. Blue Ridge *355Rural Electrical Cooperative, supra, at 537, the Court conceded that “the nature of the tribunal which tries issues may be important in the enforcement of the parcel of rights making up a cause of action or defense .... It may well be that in the instant personal-injury case the outcome would be substantially affected by whether the issue of immunity is decided by a judge or a jury.” See Curtis v. Loether, 415 U. S., at 198; cf. Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U. S. 145, 156 (1968). Jurors bring to a case their common sense and community values; their “very inexperience is an asset because it secures a fresh perception of each trial, avoiding the stereotypes said to infect the judicial eye.” H. Kalven & H. Zeisel, The American Jury 8 (1966).

The ultimate irony of today's decision is that its potential for significantly conserving the resources of either the litigants or the judiciary is doubtful at best. That being the case, I see absolutely no reason to frustrate so cavalierly the important federal policy favoring jury decisions of disputed fact questions. The instant case is an apt example of the minimal savings that will be accomplished by the Court's decision. As the Court admits, even if petitioners are collaterally estopped from relitigating whether the proxy was materially false and misleading, they are still entitled to have a jury determine whether respondent was injured by the alleged misstatements and the amount of damages, if any, sustained by respondent. Ante, at 325 n. 2. Thus, a jury must be impaneled in this case in any event. The time saved by not trying the issue of whether the proxy was materially false and misleading before the jury is likely to be insubstantial.24 It is just as probable that today’s decision will have the result of coercing defendants to agree to consent orders or settle*356ments in agency enforcement actions in order to preserve their right to jury trial in the private actions. In that event, the Court, for no compelling reason, will have simply added a powerful club to the administrative agencies’ arsenals that even Congress was unwilling to provide them.