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.
The amended complaint alleged that the proxy statement that had been issued to the stockholders was false and misleading because it failed to disclose: (1) that the president of Parklane would financially benefit as a result of the company’s going private; (2) certain ongoing negotiations that could have resulted in financial benefit to Parklane; and (3) that the appraisal of the fair value of Parklane stock was based on insufficient information to be accurate.
A private plaintiff in an action under the proxy rules is not entitled to relief simply by demonstrating that the proxy solicitation was materially false and misleading. The plaintiff must also show that he was injured and prove damages. Mills v. Electric Auto-Lite Co., 396 U. S. 376, 386-390. Since the SEC action was limited to a determination of whether the proxy statement contained materially false and misleading information, the respondent conceded that he would still have to prove these other elements of his prima facie case in the private action. The petitioners’ right to a jury trial on those remaining issues is not contested.
The position of the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit is in conflict with that taken by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in Rachal v. Hill, 435 F. 2d 59.
In this context, offensive use of collateral estoppel occurs when the plaintiff seeks to foreclose the defendant from litigating an issue the defendant has previously litigated unsuccessfully in an action with another party. Defensive use occurs when a defendant seeks to prevent a plaintiff from asserting a claim the plaintiff has previously litigated and lost against another defendant.
Under the doctrine of res judicata, a judgment on the merits in a prior suit bars a second suit involving the same parties or their privies based on the same cause of action. Under the doctrine of collateral estoppel, on the other hand, the second action is upon a different cause of action and the judgment in the prior suit precludes relitigation of issues actually litigated and necessary to the outcome of the first action. IB J. Moore, Federal Practice ¶ 0.405 [1], pp. 622-624 (2d ed. 1974); e. g., Lawlor v. National Screen Serv. Corp., 349 U. S. 322, 326; Commissioner v. Sunnen, 333 U. S. 591, 597; Cromwell v. County of Sac, 94 U. S. 351, 352-353.
E. g., Bigelow v. Old Dominion Copper Co., 225 U. S, 111, 127 (“It is a principle of general elementary law that estoppel of a judgment must be mutual”); Buckeye Powder Co. v. E. I. DuPont de Nemours Powder Co., 248 U. S. 55, 63; Restatement of Judgments §93 (1942).
It is a violation of due process for a judgment to be binding on a litigant who was not a party or a privy and therefore has never had an opportunity to be heard. Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U. S. 313, 329; Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U. S. 32, 40.
This criticism was summarized in the Court’s opinion in Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc. v. University of Illinois Foundation, supra, at 332-327. The opinion of Justice Traynor for a unanimous California Supreme Court in Bernhard v. Bank of America Nat. Trust & Savings Assn., 19 Cal. 2d 807, 812, 122 P. 2d 892, 895, made the point succinctly: “No satisfactory rationalization has been advanced for the requirement of mutuality. Just why a party who was not bound by a previous action should be precluded from asserting it as res judicata against a party who was bound by it is difficult to comprehend.”
In Triplett v. Lowell, 297 U. S. 638, the Court had held that a determination of patent invalidity in a prior action did not bar a plaintiff from *328relitigating the validity of a patent in a subsequent action against a different defendant. This holding of the Triplett case was explicitly overruled in the Blonder-Tongue case.
The Court also emphasized that relitigation of issues previously adjudicated is particularly wasteful in patent cases because of their stag*329gering expense and typical length. 402 U. S., at 334, 348. Under the doctrine of mutuality of parties an alleged infringer might find it cheaper to pay royalties than to challenge a patent that had been declared invalid in a prior suit, since the holder of the patent is entitled to a statutory presumption of validity. Id., at 338.
Various commentators have expressed reservations regarding the application of offensive collateral estoppel. Currie, Mutuality of Estoppel: Limits of the Bernhard Doctrine, 9 Stan. L. Rev. 281 (1957); Semmel, Collateral Estoppel, Mutuality and Joinder of Parties, 68 Colum. L. Rev. 1457 (1968); Note, The Impacts of Defensive and Offensive Assertion of Collateral Estoppel by a Nonparty, 35 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1010 (1967). Professor Currie later tempered his reservations. Civil Procedure: The Tempest Brews, 53 Calif. L. Rev. 25 (1965).
Under the mutuality requirement, a plaintiff could accomplish this result since he would not have been bound by the judgment had the original defendant won.
The Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 88 (3) (Tent. Draft No. 2, Apr. 15, 1975) provides that application of collateral estoppel may be denied if the party asserting it “could have effected joinder in the first action between himself and his present adversary.”
In Professor Currie's familiar example, a railroad collision injures 50 passengers all of whom bring separate actions against the railroad. After the railroad wins the first 25 suits, a plaintiff wins in suit 26. Professor Currie argues that offensive use of collateral estoppel should not *331be applied so as to allow plaintiffs 27 through 50 automatically to recover. Currie, supra, 9 Stan. L. Rev., at 304. See Restatement (Second) of Judgments §88 (4), supra.
If, for example, the defendant in the first action was forced to defend in an inconvenient forum and therefore was unable to engage in full scale discovery or call witnesses, application of offensive collateral estoppel may be unwarranted. Indeed, differences in available procedures may sometimes justify not allowing a prior judgment to have estoppel effect in a subsequent action even between the same parties, or where defensive estoppel is asserted against a plaintiff who has litigated and lost. The problem of unfairness is particularly acute in eases of offensive estoppel, however, because the defendant against whom estoppel is asserted typically will not have chosen the forum in the first action. See, id., § 88 (2) and Comment d.
This is essentially the approach of id., § 88, which recognizes that “the distinct trend if not the clear weight of recent authority is to the effect that there is no intrinsic difference between 'offensive’ as distinct from 'defensive’ issue preclusion, although a stronger showing that the prior opportunity to litigate was adequate may be required in the former situation than the latter.” Id., Reporter’s Note, at 99.
SEC v. Everest Management Corp., 475 F. 2d 1236, 1240 (CA2) (“[T]he complicating effect of the additional issues and the additional parties outweighs any advantage of a single disposition of the common issues”). Moreover, consolidation of a private action with one brought by the SEC without its consent is prohibited by statute. 15 U. S. C. § 78u (g).
After a 4-day trial in which the petitioners had every opportunity to present evidence and call witnesses, the District Court held for the SEC. The petitioners then appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which affirmed the judgment against them. Moreover, the petitioners were already aware of the action brought by the respondent, since it had commenced before the filing of the SEC action.
It is true, of course, that the petitioners in the present action would be entitled to a jury trial of the issues bearing on whether the proxy statement was materially false and misleading had the SEC action never been brought — a matter to be discussed in Part II of this opinion. But the presence or absence of a jury as factfinder is basically neutral, quite unlike, for example, the necessity of defending the first lawsuit in an inconvenient forum.
The Seventh Amendment provides: “In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shaE exceed twenty doEars, the right to jury trial shall be preserved. . .
The authors of this article conclude that the historical sources “indicates that in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, determinations in equity were thought to have as much force as determinations at law, and that the possible impact on jury trial rights was not viewed with concern. ... If coEateral estoppel is otherwise warranted, the jury trial question should not stand in the way.” 85 Harv. L. Rev., at 455-456. This common-law rule is adopted in the Restatement of Judgments § 68, Comment j (1942).
Similarly, in both Dairy Queen, Inc. v. Wood, 369 U. S. 469, and Meeker v. Ambassador Oil Cory., 375 U. S. 160, the Court held that legal claims should ordinarily be tried before equitable claims to preserve the right to a jury trial.
The petitioners’ reliance on Dimick v. Schiedt, 293 U. S. 474, is misplaced. In the Dimick case the Court held that an increase by the trial judge of the amount of money damages awarded by the jury violated the second clause of the Seventh Amendment, which provides that “no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.” Collateral estoppel does not involve the “re-examination” of any fact decided by a jury. On the contrary, the whole premise of collateral estoppel is that once an issue has been resolved in a prior proceeding, there is no further factfinding function to be performed.
In reaching this conclusion, the Court of Appeals went on to state:
“Were there any doubt about the [question whether the petitioners were entitled to a jury redetermination of the issues otherwise subject to col*338lateral estoppel] it should in any event be resolved against the defendants in this case for the reason that, although they were fully aware of the pendency of the present suit throughout the non-jury trial of the SEC case, they made no effort to protect their right to a jury trial of the damage claims asserted by plaintiffs, either by seeking to expedite trial of the present action or by requesting Judge Duffy, in the exercise of his discretion pursuant to Rule 39 (b), (c), F.R.Civ.P., to order that the issues in the SEC case be tried by a jury or before an advisory jury.” 565 F. 2d, at 821-822. (Footnote omitted.)
The Court of Appeals was mistaken in these suggestions. The petitioners did not have a. right to a jury trial in the equitable injunctive action brought by the SEC. Moreover, an advisory jury, which might have only delayed and complicated that proceeding, would not in any event have been a Seventh Amendment jury. And the petitioners were not in a position to expedite the private action and stay the SEC action. The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 provides for prompt enforcement actions by the SEC unhindered by parallel private actions. 15 U. S. C. § 78u (g).