Summary

In the Wal-Mart case, the Supreme Court decided in a 5-4 ruling that the female employees of Wal-Mart could not be certified as a class for the purpose of a class-action lawsuit. The key issue in the case was the concept of commonality, which is a requirement for certifying a class-action lawsuit. Commonality refers to the requirement that there must be common questions of law or fact that are shared by all members of the proposed class. The Court determined that the female employees did not meet the commonality requirement because their claims were based on the discretionary decisions of individual managers at thousands of Wal-Mart stores, rather than on a company-wide policy or practice of discrimination. Essentially, the Court held that the female employees did not have enough in common to be considered a class for the purposes of the lawsuit. The Court justified its decision by emphasizing the importance of commonality in class-action lawsuits. It argued that allowing such a diverse group of claims to be certified as a class would violate the rights of Wal-Mart, which would be forced to defend against a class of potentially millions of employees with individual claims that were not sufficiently similar. Overall, the Court's decision in the Wal-Mart case highlighted the importance of the commonality requirement in class-action lawsuits and the limits of using class actions to address claims that are based on individualized conduct.