517 U.S. 830 (1996)

EXXON CO., U. S. A., et al.
v.
SOFEC, INC., et al.

No. 95-129.

United States Supreme Court.

Argued March 19, 1996. Decided June 10, 1996. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

*832 *832 Thomas, J., delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.

Shirley M. Hufstedler argued the cause and filed briefs for petitioners.

George Playdon argued the cause for respondents. With him on the brief for respondents Pacific Resources, Inc., et al. were James W. McCartney, Theodore G. Dimitry, Eugene J. Silva, and Richard H. Page. Kenneth W. Starr, Edward W. Warren, Richard A. Cordray, Randall K. Schmitt, David W. Proudfoot, and John R. Lacy filed a brief for respondents Sofec, Inc., et al.^[*]

Justice Thomas, delivered the opinion of the Court.

In United States v. Reliable Transfer Co., 421 U. S. 397 (1975), we abandoned the "divided damages" rule previously applied to claims in admiralty for property damages, and adopted the comparative fault principle for allocating damages among parties responsible for an injury. In this case we affirm that the requirement of legal or "proximate" causation, and the related "superseding cause" doctrine, apply in admiralty notwithstanding our adoption of the comparative fault principle.

I

This case arises from the stranding of a tanker, the Exxon Houston , several hours after it broke away from a Single Point Mooring System (SPM) owned and operated by the HIRI respondents and manufactured by respondent Sofec, Inc.^[1] The Houston was engaged in delivering oil into HIRI's *833 pipeline through two floating hoses, pursuant to a contract between Exxon and respondent PRII, when a heavy storm broke the chafe chain linking the vessel to the SPM. As the vessel drifted, the oil hoses broke away from the SPM. The parting of the second hose at approximately 1728 nautical time was designated below as the "breakout." The hoses were bolted to the ship, and a portion of the second hose remained attached to the ship. So long as the hose was attached to and trailing from the ship, it threatened to foul the ship's propeller, and consequently the ship's ability to maneuver was restricted.

During the 2 hours and 41 minutes following the breakout, the captain of the Houston , Captain Coyne, took the ship through a series of maneuvers described in some detail in the District Court's findings of fact. The District Court found that by 1803, a small assist vessel, the Nene, was able to get control of the end of the hose so that it was no longer a threat to the Houston . See 54 F. 3d 570, 572 (CA9 1995). Between 1803 and 1830, Captain Coyne maneuvered the Houston out to sea and away from shallow water. The District Court, and on appeal, a panel of the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, found that by 1830, the Houston had successfully avoided the peril resulting from the breakout. App. to Pet. for Cert. 65; 54 F. 3d, at 578-579. The ship had "reached a safe position," App. to Pet. for Cert. 64, and was "heading out to sea and in no further danger of stranding," id. , at 65; 54 F. 3d, at 578.

Many of Captain Coyne's actions after 1830 were negligent, according to the courts below. Most significant was his failure to have someone plot the ship's position between 1830 and 2004, a period during which the crews of the Houston and the Nene were working to disconnect the hose from the Houston . Without knowing his position, Captain Coyne *834 was unable to make effective use of a navigational chart to check for hazards. The courts found that this failure to plot fixes of the ship's position was grossly and extraordinarily negligent. App. to Pet. for Cert. 61; 54 F. 3d, at 578. The District Court found that "Captain Coyne's decisions were made calmly, deliberately and without the pressure of an imminent peril." App. to Pet. for Cert. 60. His failure to plot fixes after 1830 "was entirely independent of the fact of breakout; he voluntarily decided not to plot fixes in a situation where he was able to plot fixes." Id., at 64.

At 1956, Captain Coyne initiated a final turn toward the shore. Because he had not plotted the ship's position, Captain Coyne was unaware of its position until he ordered another crew member to plot the fix at 2004. Upon seeing the fix on the chart, the captain apparently realized that the ship was headed for a reef. Captain Coyne's ensuing efforts to avoid the reef came too late, and moments later the ship ran aground, resulting in its constructive total loss. The District Court found that Captain Coyne's decision to make this final turn "was not foreseeable." Id., at 65.

Exxon filed a complaint in admiralty against the HIRI respondents and respondent Sofec for, inter alia, the loss of its ship and cargo. The complaint contained claims for breach of warranty, strict products liability, and negligence. HIRI filed a complaint against several third-party respondents, who had manufactured and supplied the chafe chain that held the tanker to the SPM.

Before trial, respondents suggested that Captain Coyne's conduct was the superseding and sole proximate cause of the loss of the ship, and they moved to bifurcate the trial. Respondents and the third-party respondents disputed among themselves the cause of the breakout, and they apparently sought bifurcation of the trial to avoid lengthy proceedings to resolve those factual disputes prior to a determination whether Captain Coyne's conduct was the superseding cause *835 of Exxon's injury. The District Court granted the motion, limiting the first phase of the trial to the issue of proximate causation with respect to actions taken after the breakout, and leaving the issue of causation of the breakout itself for the second phase.

Following a 3-week bench trial in admiralty, the District Court found that Captain Coyne's (and by imputation, Exxon's) extraordinary negligence was the superseding and sole proximate cause of the Houston' s grounding. Id., at 63. The court entered final judgment against Exxon with respect to the loss of the Houston, and Exxon appealed.

The Ninth Circuit held that the District Court's findings "that Captain Coyne had ample time, as well as opportunity and available manpower, to take precautions which would have eliminated the risk of grounding, and that his failure to do so amounted to extraordinary negligence, superseding any negligence of the defendants with regard to the breakout or provision of safe berth after the breakout," were "well supported by the record," and not clearly erroneous. 54 F. 3d, at 579. The court rejected Exxon's contention that the captain's actions were foreseeable reactions to the breakout; rather, it noted, Captain Coyne himself had explained that he did not plot fixes "because he felt it was unnecessary to do so." Id. , at 578.

Relying upon Circuit precedent, the court rejected Exxon's legal argument that the doctrines of proximate causation and superseding cause were no longer applicable in admiralty in light of this Court's decision in Reliable Transfer. "[A]n intervening force supersedes prior negligence" and thus breaks the chain of proximate causation required to impose liability on the original actor, the court held, "where the subsequent actor's negligence was `extraordinary' (defined as `neither normal nor reasonably foreseeable')." 54 F. 3d, at 574. The court also rejected Exxon's argument that the District Court erred in rendering judgment against Exxon *836 on its breach of warranty claims. "Where, as here, the district court finds the injured party to be the superseding or sole proximate cause of the damage complained of, it cannot recover from a party whose actions or omissions are deemed to be causes in fact, but not legal causes of the damage." Id. , at 576. Finally, the court held that under the circumstances of the case, the District Court's bifurcation of the trial was not an abuse of discretion. We granted certiorari. 516 U. S. 983 (1995).

II

Exxon makes four arguments for the reversal of the judgment below: (1) that the superseding cause doctrine does not or should not apply in admiralty; (2) that respondents' breaches of warranty were causes in fact of the loss of the Houston and hence respondents should be liable for that loss; (3) that the lower courts' finding that Captain Coyne's extraordinary negligence was the sole proximate cause of the loss of the Houston was in error; and (4) that the District Court abused its discretion and deprived Exxon of due process in bifurcating the issue of proximate causation from the other issues.

A

Exxon's primary argument is that the proximate causation requirement, and the related superseding cause doctrine, are not or should not be applicable in admiralty. In particular, Exxon asserts that the lower courts' refusal to allocate any share of damages to parties whose fault was a cause in fact of Exxon's injury conflicts with our decision in Reliable Transfer.

We disagree. In Reliable Transfer, we discarded a longstanding rule that property damages in admiralty cases are to be divided equally between those liable for injury, "whatever the relative degree of their fault may have been," 421 U. S., at 397, and adopted the comparative fault principle in *837 its stead.^[2] The proximate causation requirement was not before us in Reliable Transfer, and we did not suggest that the requirement was inapplicable in admiralty. (Nor, for that matter, did we consider whether the injury had been proximately caused by the defendant in that case.)

There is nothing internally inconsistent in a system that apportions damages based upon comparative fault only among tortfeasors whose actions were proximate causes of an injury. Nor is there any repugnancy between the superseding cause doctrine, which is one facet of the proximate causation requirement, and a comparative fault method of allocating damages. As Professor Schoenbaum has said:

"The doctrine of superseding cause is . . . applied where the defendant's negligence in fact substantially contributed to the plaintiff's injury, but the injury was actually brought about by a later cause of independent origin that was not foreseeable. It is properly applied in admiralty cases.

". . . [T]he superseding cause doctrine can be reconciled with comparative negligence. Superseding cause operates to cut off the liability of an admittedly negligent defendant, and there is properly no apportionment of comparative fault where there is an absence of proximate *838 causation." 1 T. Schoenbaum, Admiralty and Maritime Law ž 5-3, pp. 165-166 (2d ed. 1994).

Indeed, the HIRI respondents assert that of the 46 States that have adopted a comparative fault system, at least 44 continue to recognize and apply the superseding cause doctrine. Brief for HIRI Respondents 28, and n. 31; id. , at App. A (listing state-court decisions). Exxon does not take issue with this assertion and concedes that it is not aware of any state decision that holds otherwise. Tr. of Oral Arg. 10.

Exxon also argues that we should in any event eschew in the admiralty context the "confusing maze of common-law proximate cause concepts"; a system in which damages are allocated based upon the degree of comparative fault of any party whose act was a cause in fact of injury is "fairer and simpler," it says. Reply Brief for Petitioners 2. It is true that commentators have often lamented the degree of disagreement regarding the principles of proximate causation and confusion in the doctrine's application, see, e. g., Keeton 263, but it is also true that proximate causation principles are generally thought to be a necessary limitation on liability, see, e. g., id. , at 264, 293, 294, 312. Indeed, the system Exxon apparently proposes either would let proximate causation principles, with all of their complexity, creep back in as one factor in the "comparative fault" analysis itself, see n. 2, supra, or would produce extreme results. "In a philosophical sense, the consequences of an act go forward to eternity, and the causes of an event go back to the dawn of human events, and beyond." Keeton 264. Nevertheless,

"the careless actor will [not] always be held for all damages for which the forces that he risked were a cause in fact. Somewhere a point will be reached when courts will agree that the link has become too tenuousÔÇöthat what is claimed to be consequence is only fortuity. Thus, if the [negligent] destruction of the Michigan Avenue Bridge had delayed the arrival of a doctor, with consequent *839 loss of a patient's life, few judges would impose liability." Petition of Kinsman Transit Co., 338 F. 2d 708, 725 (CA2 1964), quoted in 1 Schoenbaum, supra, ž 5-3, at 164.

In ruling upon whether a defendant's blameworthy act was sufficiently related to the resulting harm to warrant imposing liability for that harm on the defendant, courts sitting in admiralty may draw guidance from, inter alia, the extensive body of state law applying proximate causation requirements and from treatises and other scholarly sources. See Keeton 279 ("`The best use that can be made of the authorities on proximate cause is merely to furnish illustrations of situations which judicious men upon careful consideration have adjudged to be on one side of the line or the other' ") (quoting 1 T. Street, Foundations of Legal Liability 110 (1906)).

B

Exxon's argument that the District Court erred in rendering judgment against Exxon on its breach of warranty claims fares no better. Exxon implicitly argues that because the respondents breached various contractual warranties, they were "best situated" to prevent the loss of the Houston; and Exxon invokes a passage from Italia Societa per Azioni di Navigazione v. Oregon Stevedoring Co., 376 U. S. 315 (1964). In Italia Societa, we held that a stevedore breaches its implied warranty of workmanlike service to a shipowner when the stevedore nonnegligently supplies defective equipment that injures one of its employees during stevedoring operations. That case does not purport to deal with the proximate causation limitation for damages on a warranty claim and is not relevant to the question presented here.

We agree with the Ninth Circuit that where the injured party is the sole proximate cause of the damage complained of, that party cannot recover in contract from a party whose breach of warranty is found to be a mere cause in fact of the damage. Although the principles of legal causation sometimes *840 receive labels in contract analysis different from the "proximate causation" label most frequently employed in tort analysis, these principles nevertheless exist to restrict liability in contract as well. Indeed, the requirement of foreseeability may be more stringent in the context of contract liability than it is in the context of tort liability. See East River S. S. Corp. v. Transamerica Delaval Inc., 476 U. S. 858, 874-875 (1986); Restatement (Second) of Contracts ž 351 and Comment a, pp. 135-136 (1979); 11 W. Jaeger, Williston on Contracts ž 1344, pp. 227-228 (3d ed. 1968); 5 A. Corbin, Corbin on Contracts ž 1008, pp. 75-76 (1964); id., ž 1019, at 113-116; cf. 3 E. Farnsworth, Contracts ž 12.14, pp. 241-243 (1990) (Hadley v. Baxendale, 9 Ex. 341, 156 Eng. Rep. 145 (1854), "impose[s] a more severe limitation on the recovery of damages for breach of contract than that applicable to actions in tort or for breach of warranty, in which substantial or proximate cause is the test"). The finding that Captain Coyne's extraordinary negligence was the sole proximate cause of Exxon's injury suffices to cut off respondents' liability for that injury on a contractual breach of warranty theory as well.

C

The legal question that we took this case to address is whether a plaintiff in admiralty that is the superseding and thus the sole proximate cause of its own injury can recover part of its damages from tortfeasors or contracting partners whose blameworthy actions or breaches were causes in fact of the plaintiff's injury. As we have held above, the answer is that it may not. Apparently anticipating that this legal issue would not likely be resolved in its favor, Exxon devotes a large portion of its briefs to arguing that the findings by the lower courts that Captain Coyne's extraordinary negligence was the sole proximate cause of Exxon's injury were in error. The issues of proximate causation and superseding cause involve application of law to fact, which is left to the *841 factfinder, subject to limited review. See, e. g., Milwaukee & St. Paul R. Co. v. Kellogg, 94 U. S. 469, 473-476 (1877); Keeton 320-321; 5 Corbin, supra, ž 998, at 22-23. "A court of law, such as this Court is, rather than a court for correction of errors in fact finding, cannot undertake to review concurrent findings of fact by two courts below in the absence of a very obvious and exceptional showing of error." Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products Co., 336 U. S. 271, 275 (1949); see also Goodman v. Lukens Steel Co., 482 U. S. 656, 665 (1987); Reliable Transfer, 421 U. S., at 401, n. 2. Although Exxon identifies some tension in the various findings made by the courts below,^[3] we nevertheless conclude that Exxon has not made an "obvious and exceptional showing of error" that would justify our reversal of the courts' ultimate African-American. If the Tarrant County and Collin County portions of the district were removed, the resulting district would have 557,218 people, of which 280,620 (or 50.36%) would be African-American. While the resulting district would not include the "zero deviation" necessary under Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533 (1964), and its progeny, see n. 10, supra, the missing population could easily be acquired in majority-black census blocks adjacent to District 30's southern and eastern edge, thereby increasing the proportion of black population still further. Because the alleged racial goals of the district could be achieved more effectively by making the district more compact, I simply do not comprehend how the plurality can conclude that the effort to create a majority-minority district "predominated" over other, race-neutral goals. *1024 Intent

Perhaps conscious that noncompact congressional districts are the rule rather than the exception in Texas, the plurality suggests, ante, at 960-961, 969-970, that the real key is the direct evidence, particularly in the form of Texas' ž 5 Voting Rights Act submissions and the person of then-State Senator Johnson, that the State expressed an intent to create these districts with a given "minimum percentage of the favored minority." 861 F. Supp., at 1309. Even if it were appropriate to rest this test of dominance on an examination of the subjective motivation of individual legislators,^[23] or on *1025 testimony given in a legal proceeding designed to prove a conflicting conclusion,^[24] this information does little more than confirm that the State believed it necessary to comply with the Voting Rights Act. Given its reasonable understanding of its legal responsibilities, see supra, at 1007, the legislature acted to ensure that its goal of creating a majority-black district in Dallas County was not undermined by the changes made to accommodate District 30 to other, race-neutral districting principles. As the plurality admits, see ante, at 958, the intent to create majority-minority districts does not in itself trigger strict scrutiny; these admissions prove nothing more than that. See also Shaw II, ante, at 930-932 (Stevens, J., dissenting).

Nonracial Factors: Community

In an effort to provide a definitive explanation for the odd shape of the district, the State emphasized two factors: The *1026 presence of communities of interest tying together the populations of the district, and the role of incumbency protection. The District Court and the plurality improperly dismissed these considerations as ultimately irrelevant to the shape of the districts.

First, the appellants presented testimony that the districts were drawn to align with certain communities of interest, such as land use, family demographics, and transportation corridors. See 861 F. Supp., at 1322-1323. Although the District Court recognized that these community characteristics amounted to accurate descriptions of District 30, id., at 1323, it dismissed them as irrelevant to the districting process, concluding that there was no evidence that "the Legislature had these particular `communities of interest' in mind when drawing the boundaries of District 30." Ibid. The plurality concludes that appellants present no reason to displace that conclusion. Ante, at 966-967.

I do not understand why we should require such evidence ever to exist. It is entirely reasonable for the legislature to rely on the experience of its members when drawing particular boundaries rather than on clearly identifiable "evidence" presented by demographers and political scientists. Most of these representatives have been members of their communities for years. Unless the Court intends to interfere in state political processes even more than it has already expressed an intent to do, I presume that it does not intend to require States to create a comprehensive administrative record in support of their redistricting process. State legislators should be able to rely on their own experience, not only prepared reports. To the extent that the presence of obvious communities of interest among members of a district explicitly or implicitly guided the shape of District 30, it amounts to an entirely legitimate nonracial consideration.^[25]*1027 Nonracial Factors: Incumbency

The plurality admits that the appellants "present a . . . substantial case for their claim that incumbency protection rivaled race in determining the district's shape." Ante, at 967. Every individual who participated in the redistricting process knew that incumbency protection was a critical factor in producing the bizarre lines and, as the plurality points out, ante, at 963-964, even the District Court recognized that this nearly exclusive focus on the creation of "safe" districts for incumbents was intimately related to the bizarre shape of district lines throughout the State.

"[I]n Texas in 1991, many incumbent protection boundaries sabotaged traditional redistricting principles as they routinely divided counties, cities, neighborhoods, and regions. For the sake of maintaining or winning seats in the House of Representatives, Congressmen or would-be Congressmen shed hostile groups and potential opponents by fencing them out of their districts. The Legislature obligingly carved out districts of apparent supporters of incumbents, . . . and then added appendages to connect their residences to those districts. The final result seems not one in which the people select their representatives, but in which the representatives *1028 have selected the people." 861 F. Supp., at 1334 (citations and footnotes omitted).

See also id., at 1335, n. 43. Despite this overwhelming evidence that incumbency protection was the critical motivating factor in the creation of the bizarre Texas districts, the District Court reached the stunning conclusion that because the process was so "different in degree" from the "generalized, and legitimate, goal of incumbent and seniority protection" that this Court has previously recognized, it could not serve as a legitimate explanation for the bizarre boundaries of the congressional districts. Id., at 1334-1335. In dismissing incumbency protection once and for all, the District Court stated that "[i]ncumbent protection is a valid state interest only to the extent that it is not a pretext for unconstitutional racial gerrymandering." Id., at 1336.

It is difficult to know where to begin to attack the misperceptions reflected in these conclusions,^[26] and the plurality's failure to do so seriously taints its evaluation of the relative importance of nonracial considerations in the creation of District 30. The initial problem, of course, is that under the Court's threshold test as set forth in Miller, one must consider the role of incumbency protection before determining whether there is an "unconstitutional racial gerrymander." And because the ultimate focus in these gerrymandering cases is the claim that race was the "dominant and controlling rationale in drawing [the] district lines," 515 U. S., at 913, a court must, in applying that test, consider a State's claim that a given race-neutral rationale controlled the creation of those lines. See id., at 916 ("Where [compactness, contiguity,] or other race-neutral considerations are the basis for redistricting legislation, and are not subordinated to race, a State can `defeat a claim that a district has been *1029 gerrymandered on racial lines' "). Although a court may not like the State's explanation, that is no excuse for ignoring it.

If some independent bar prevented the use of that raceneutral criterion, then the District Court might be in a position to object to the State's use of it. We have, however, affirmed that a State has an interest in incumbency protection, see, e. g., ante, at 964-965 (opinion of O'Connor, J.); White v. Weiser, 412 U. S. 783, 791, 797 (1973), and also assured States that the Constitution does not require compactness, contiguity, or respect for political borders, see Shaw I, 509 U. S., at 647. While egregious political gerrymandering may not be particularly praiseworthy, see infra, at 1038ÔÇö 1040, it may nonetheless provide the race-neutral explanation necessary for a State to avoid strict scrutiny of the district lines where gerrymandering is the "dominant and controlling" explanation for the odd district shapes.^[27]

The District Court's error had an apparently dispositive effect on its assessment of whether strict scrutiny should apply at all. Although aspects of our dispute with the plurality are "largely factual," ante, at 971, n., they arise not out of our disagreement with the District Court's credibility assessments, but out of that court's erroneous conclusion that the State's overwhelming reliance on this race-neutral factor was illegitimate and irrelevant to its evaluation of the factors involved in the shifting of this district's lines. A fair evaluation of the record made in light of appropriate legal standards requires a conclusion very different from the District Court's. By following the District Court down its misdirected path, the plurality itself goes astray. *1030 Race as a Proxy

Faced with all this evidence that politics, not race, was the predominant factor shaping the district lines, the plurality ultimately makes little effort to contradict appellants' assertions that incumbency protection was far more important in the placement of District 30's lines than race. See ante, at 967-969. Instead, it adopts a fallback position based on an argument far removed from even the "analytically distinct" claim set forth in Shaw I, 509 U. S., at 652. In it, the plurality suggests that even if the predominant reason for the bizarre features of the majority-minority districts was incumbency protection, the State impermissibly used race as a proxy for determining the likely political affiliation of blocks of voters. See ante, at 968-971 (opinion of O'Connor, J.).

The effect of this process, in all likelihood, was relatively unimportant to the overall shape of the district. A comparison of the 1992 precinct results with a depiction of the proportion of black population in each census block reveals that Democratic-leaning precincts cover a far greater area than majority-black census blocks. Compare State's Exh. 9A with State's Exh. 45. One would expect the opposite effect if the single-minded goal of those drawing the districts was racial composition rather than political affiliation. At the very least, the maps suggest that the drawing of boundaries involves a demographic calculus far more complex than simple racial stereotyping.

Furthermore, to the extent that race served as a proxy at all, it did so merely as a means of "fine tuning" borders that were already in particular locations for primarily political reasons. This "fine tuning" through the use of race is, of course, little different from the kind of fine tuning that could have legitimately occurred around the edges of a compact majority-minority district.^[28] I perceive no reason why a *1031 legitimate processÔÇöchoosing minority voters for inclusion in a majority-minority districtÔÇöshould become suspect once nonracial considerations force district lines away from its core.

Finally, I note that in most contexts racial classifications are invidious because they are irrational. For example, it is irrational to assume that a person is not qualified to vote or to serve as a juror simply because she has brown hair or brown skin. It is neither irrational, nor invidious, however, to assume that a black resident of a particular community is a Democrat if reliable statistical evidence discloses that 97% of the blacks in that community vote in Democratic primary elections. See Brief for United States 44. For that reason, the fact that the architects of the Texas plan sometimes appear to have used racial data as a proxy for making political judgments seems to me to be no more "unjustified," ante, at 969 (opinion of O'Connor, J.), and to have no more constitutional significance, than an assumption that wealthy suburbanites, whether black or white, are more likely to be Republicans *1032 than Communists.^[29] Requiring the State to ignore the association between race and party affiliation would be no more logical, and potentially as harmful, as it would be to prohibit the Public Health Service from targeting AfricanAmerican communities in an effort to increase awareness regarding sickle-cell anemia.^[30]

Despite all the efforts by the plurality and the District Court, then, the evidence demonstrates that race was not, in all likelihood, the "predominant" goal leading to the creation of District 30. The most reasonable interpretation of the record evidence instead demonstrates that political considerations were. In accord with the presumption against interference with a legislature's consideration of complex and competing factors, see n. 9, supra, I would conclude that the configuration of District 30 does not require strict scrutiny.

*1033 V

The Houston districts present a closer question on the application of strict scrutiny. There is evidence that many of the same race-neutral factors motivating the zigzags of District 30 were present at the creation (or recreation) of Districts 29 and 18. In contrast to District 30, however, there is also evidence that the interlocking shapes of the Houston districts were specifically, and almost exclusively, the result of an effort to create, out of largely integrated communities, both a majority-black and a majority-Hispanic district. For purposes of this opinion, then, I am willing to accept, arguendo, the plurality's conclusion that the Houston districts should be examined with strict scrutiny.^[31] Even so, the plurality errs by concluding that these districts would fail that test.

The plurality begins with the perfectly obvious assumptions that a State has a compelling interest in complying with ž 2 of the Voting Rights Act and that Texas had a strong basis for believing that it would have violated that Act in 1991 if it did not create three new majority-minority districts.^[32] The plurality goes on to conclude, however, that because the final shape of these districts is not coextensive with the community that would form the core of a ž 2 violation, these districts would not be "narrowly tailored" to further that state interest. Ante, at 979. I respectfully disagree.

Neither evidence nor insinuation suggests that the State in the redistricting process considered race for any reason *1034 other than as a means of accomplishing its compelling interest of creating majority-minority districts in accord with the Voting Rights Act. The goal was, by all accounts, achieved, for these districts would certainly avoid liability under ž 2 of the Voting Rights Act.^[33] For reasons that continue to escape me, however, the plurality simply insists that the lack of compactness in the districts prevents them from being "narrowly tailored" solutions to the State's interests.

The plurality uses two premises to reach its conclusion that compactness is required to meet the "narrow tailoring" requirement: (i) ž 2 would not have been violated unless a reasonably compact majority-minority district could have been created; and (ii) nothing in ž 2 requires the creation of a noncompact district. I have no quarrel with either proposition, but each falls far short of mandating the conclusion that the plurality draws from it. While a State can be liable for a ž 2 violation only if it could have drawn a compact district and failed to do so, it does not follow that creating such a district is the only way to avoid a ž 2 violation. See generally Shaw II, ante, at 946-950 (Stevens, J., dissenting). The plurality admits that a State retains "a limited degree of leeway" in drawing a district to alleviate fears of ž 2 liability, ante, at 977, but if there is no independent constitutional duty to create compact districts in the first place, and the plurality suggests none, there is no reason why noncompact districts should not be a permissible method of avoiding violations of law. The fact that they might be unacceptable judicial remedies does not speak to the question whether they *1035 may be acceptable when adopted by a state legislature. Because these districts satisfy the State's compelling interest and do so in a manner that uses racial considerations only in a way reasonably designed to ensure such a satisfaction, I conclude that the districts are narrowly tailored.

VI

I cannot profess to know how the Court's developing jurisprudence of racial gerrymandering will alter the political and racial landscape in this NationÔÇöalthough it certainly will alter that landscape. As the Court's law in this area has developed, it has become ever more apparent to me that the Court's approach to these cases creates certain perverse incentives and (I presume) unanticipated effects that serve to highlight the essentially unknown territory into which it strides. Because I believe that the social and political risks created by the Court's decisions are not required by the Constitution, my first choice would be to avoid the preceding analysis altogether, and leave these considerations to the political branches of our Government.

The first unintended outcome of the legal reasoning in Shaw II and this case is the very result that those decisions seek to avoid: the predominance of race in the districting process, over all other principles of importance. Given the Court's unwillingness to recognize the role that race-neutral districting principles played in the creation of the bizarrely shaped districts in both this case and Shaw II, it now seems clear that the only way that a State can both create a majority-minority district and avoid a racial gerrymander is by drawing, "without much conscious thought," ante, at 967 (opinion of O'Connor, J.), and within the "limited degree of leeway" granted by the Court, ante, at 977, the precise compact district that a court would impose in a successful ž 2 challenge. See post, at 1066-1067 (Souter, J., dissenting). After the Court's decisions today, therefore, minority voters can make up a majority only in compact districts, whether *1036 intentionally or accidentally drawn, while white voters can be placed into districts as bizarre as the State desires.

The great irony, of course, is that by requiring the State to place the majority-minority district in a particular place and with a particular shape, the district may stand out as a stark, placid island in a sea of oddly shaped majority-white neighbors. See Karlan, Still Hazy After All These Years: Voting Rights in the Post-Shaw Era, 26 Cumberland L. Rev. 287, 309 (1995-1996). The inviolable sanctity of the ž 2eligible districts will signal in a manner more blatant than the most egregious of these racial gerrymanders that "a minority community sits here: Interfere with it not." The Court-imposed barriers limiting the shape of the district will interfere more directly with the ability of minority voters to participate in the political process than did the oddly shaped districts that the Court has struck down in recent cases. Unaffected by the new racial jurisprudence, majority-white communities will be able to participate in the districting process by requesting that they be placed into certain districts, divided between districts in an effort to maximize representation, or grouped with more distant communities that might nonetheless match their interests better than communities next door. By contrast, none of this political maneuvering will be permissible for majority-minority districts, thereby segregating and balkanizing them far more effectively than the districts at issue here, in which they were manipulated in the political process as easily as white voters. This result, it seems to me, involves "discrimination" in a far more concrete manner than did the odd shapes that so offended the Court's sensibilities in Miller, Shaw II, and these cases.

In light of this Court's recent work extolling the importance of state sovereignty in our federal scheme, cf. Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, ante, p. 44, I would have expected the Court's sensibilities to steer a course rather more deferential to the States than the one that it charts with its *1037 decisions today. As we have previously noted, "[e]lectoral districting is a most difficult subject for legislatures, and so the States must have discretion to exercise the political judgment necessary to balance competing interests." Miller, 515 U. S., at 915; see also post, at 1047-1048 (Souter, J., dissenting). The record in these cases evidences the "complex interplay of forces that enter a legislature's redistricting calculus," 515 U. S., at 915-916, and the Court's failure to respect those forces demonstrates even less respect for the legislative process than I would have expected after the decision in Miller.

The results are not inconsequential. After Miller and today's decisions, States may find it extremely difficult to avoid litigation flowing from decennial redistricting. On one hand, States will risk violating the Voting Rights Act if they fail to create majority-minority districts. If they create those districts, however, they may open themselves to liability under Shaw and its progeny. See Miller, 515 U. S., at 949 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting). Perhaps States will simply avoid the problem by abandoning voluntary compliance with ž 2 of the Voting Rights Act altogether. See Shaw I, 509 U. S., at 672 (White, J., dissenting); post, at 1063-1064 (Souter, J., dissenting).^[34] This result would not necessarily bring peace to redistricting, for there is no guarantee that districts created by court order to comply with ž 2 will be immune from attack under Shaw; in both Florida and Illinois, for instance, that very sort of schizophrenic second-guessing has already occurred. See King v. State Bd. of Elections, *1038 No. 95ÔÇöC-827, 1996 WL 130439 (ND Ill., Mar. 15, 1996); Johnson v. Mortham, 926 F. Supp. 1460 (ND Fla. 1996). Given the difficulty of reconciling these competing legal responsibilities, the political realities of redistricting, and the cost of ongoing litigation, some States may simply step out of the redistricting business altogether, citing either frustration or hopes of getting a federal court to resolve the issues definitively in a single proceeding. See, e. g., Johnson v. Miller, 922 F. Supp. 1556, 1559 (SD Ga. 1995) (after remand from Miller, Georgia Legislature abdicated its redistricting responsibilities to Federal District Court); post, at 1064 (Souter, J., dissenting) (noting the likely "vacuum of responsibility" at the state level).

Regardless of the route taken by the States, the Court has guaranteed that federal courts will have a handÔÇöand perhaps the only handÔÇöin the "abrasive task of drawing district lines." Wells v. Rockefeller, 394 U. S. 542, 553 (1969) (White, J., dissenting). Given the uniquely political nature of the redistricting process, I fear the impact this new role will have on the public's perception of the impartiality of the Federal Judiciary. I can only reiterate the Court's cautionary admonition, issued over two decades ago, that "[i]n fashioning a reapportionment plan or in choosing among plans, a district court should not pre-empt the legislative task nor `intrude upon state policy any more than necessary.' " White v. Weiser, 412 U. S., at 795 (citing Whitcomb v. Chavis, 403 U. S. 124, 160 (1971)).

I do not wish to leave the impression that decisions of the Court from Shaw I to the present are focusing on entirely nonexistent problems. I merely believe that the Court has entirely misapprehended the nature of the harm that flows from this sort of gerrymandering. Rather than attach blameworthiness to a decision by the majority to share political power with the victims of past discriminatory practices, the Court's real concern should be with the more significant harms that flow from legislative decisions that "serve no *1039 purpose other than to favor one segmentÔÇöwhether racial, ethnic, religious, economic, or politicalÔÇöthat may occupy a position of strength at a particular point in time, or to disadvantage a politically weak segment of the community." Karcher v. Daggett, 462 U. S. 725, 748 (1983) (Stevens, J., concurring). These cases are as good an illustration of such self-serving behavior on the part of legislators as anyÔÇöbut not with respect to racial gerrymandering. The real problem is the politically motivated gerrymandering that occurred in Texas. Many of the oddest twists and turns of the Texas districts would never have been created if the legislature had not been so intent on protecting party and incumbents. See also Shaw II, ante, at 937-938 (Stevens, J., dissenting) (noting the same influences behind the bizarre shape of North Carolina's District 12).

By minimizing the critical role that political motives played in the creation of these districts, I fear that the Court may inadvertently encourage this more objectionable use of power in the redistricting process.^[35] Legislatures and elected representatives have a responsibility to behave in a way that incorporates the "elements of legitimacy and neutrality that must always characterize the performance of the sovereign's duty to govern impartially." Cleburne, 473 U. S., at 452. That responsibility is not discharged when legislatures permit and even encourage incumbents to use their positions as public servants to protect themselves and their parties rather than the interests of their constituents. See Karcher v. Daggett,