1. What did the Supreme Court decide in the Wal-Mart case? And more importantly, how did it justify its decision? (HINT: the key word here is “commonality” (and how it related to “class-action lawsuit”). Try to understand what this legal terms means, as it is key to the court’s decision).
   In the War-mart v. Dukes case, the U.S.  supreme court ruled against the plaintiff .The U.S. The Supreme Court claimed that Betty Dukes and the other women didn’t meet the requirements for the class action lawsuit due to not following rule 23 of the federal rules of civil procedure . The U.S. Supreme Courtount found that this women lacked the “commonality” required for the lawsuit since this women problems weren’t all allied and consisted .Therefore, to have a good class action lawsuit the plaintiffs should have a “commonality”.However , the plaintiffs did share one problem which was sex discrimination ,but this women had different experiences working at Wal-mart. According to the plaintiff , their “commonality” was their experiences of sex discrimination and men favoritism within the Wal-Mart company but all of the women did not share the same problem . Due to this the U.S. supreme court decided not to move forward with the lawsuit. 
   
   

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs, deciding that the class-action lawsuit filed by Betty Dukes and other women did not meet the requirements necessary to proceed as a class action under Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The Court determined that the plaintiffs’ request for injunctive relief and back pay was procedurally flawed. It held that these types of relief could not be pursued together under the specific “b(2)” classification they used. The Court also found that the class lacked the “commonality” required for certification.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, argued that for a class to meet the commonality requirement, its members must share common questions of law or fact and a common solution that could resolve the claims of all class members in a single stroke. He contended that because Wal-Mart’s alleged discriminatory practices stemmed from decentralized managerial discretion rather than a unified corporate policy, the women’s experiences varied too widely. Without a unifying “glue” to connect the claims—such as a central discriminatory policy—there was no single answer to the crucial question, “Why was I disfavored?” In the Court’s view, this lack of a consistent thread rendered the class-action approach inappropriate.

The dissent, led by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, criticized the majority’s interpretation of commonality, arguing that Wal-Mart’s culture of discretionary practices had a demonstrable pattern of gender bias across the company. She emphasized that even decentralized practices can lead to systemic discrimination and that such patterns should suffice to establish commonality under Rule 23. However, the majority’s narrow definition of commonality prevailed.

What did the Supreme Court decide in the Wal-Mart case? And more importantly, how did it justify its decision? (HINT: the key word here is “commonality” (and how it related to “class-action lawsuit”). Try to understand what this legal terms means, as it is key to the court’s decision).

In the Wal-Mart v. Dukes case, the Supreme Court decided that the women who were suing Wal-Mart couldn’t move forward with their class-action lawsuit. The women claimed Wal-Mart discriminated against them in pay and promotions, but the Court said their situations were too different to combine into one case. The key issue was something called “commonality”, which means for a class action lawsuit to happen, the people suing need to have a shared, common issue. Since the women’s experiences varied like where they worked or who their manager was. The Court decided they didn’t have enough in common to join together in a single lawsuit because of that each woman’s case had to be handled separately.

In the Wal-Mart case, Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the Supreme Court decided not to move forward with a class action lawsuit that over one million female employees filed against Wal-Mart. The decision mainly focused on the requirement of “commonality,” a key element for class-action lawsuits under Rule 23(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This requirement means that the members of the lawsuit must have similar legal issues or situations that would warrant addressing their claims together. Justice Scalia, leading the majority opinion, argued that the plaintiffs failed to show that Wal-Mart had a company-wide policy of discrimination impacting all the class members. He noted that there wasn’t a consistent link or “glue” across the numerous employment decisions at various Wal-Mart stores. Without a clear, overarching policy of discrimination, the court felt that each claim would need individual examination to understand the specific details and context. The court reasoned that simply showing variations in pay and promotions across Wal-Mart didn’t sufficiently demonstrate common legal or factual questions. Since the plaintiffs couldn’t trace these issues to a uniform discriminatory policy affecting everyone, the differences in how individual stores operated meant that each complaint might need to be considered on its own. The majority stressed that for a class action to be approved, it must demonstrate that all plaintiffs suffered the same type of harm under the same corporate policy. Lacking this uniformity, the court suggested that individual lawsuits were more suitable for addressing these complaints. This ruling is significant as it points out the difficulties of proving widespread discrimination in large, decentralized companies where management practices can differ greatly. It set a precedent that for a class-action suit to be certified, there needs to be a clear and common thread in the discrimination claims across the entire class.

During the wal-mart case the Supreme Court ruled that the woman who was suing wal-mart could not move forward with the case as a class action lawsuit. In order to move forward with a class action lawsuit you need to have all members to share the same situation, meaning the members have to prove and share the same situation as the woman suing wal-mart (commonality). Commonality is when a group of people come together from a company and report the same exact situation because they all deal with it.

1. The Supreme Court ruled that they could not certify the class action lawsuit against Walmart which was in large part due to the lack of commonality within the case. Commonality is the core fundamental detail that was missing in a class action suit. They believed that there was no certain provision or policy that was put into place by Walmart that directly connected to every claim . Because it was a class action lawsuit, the claim of discrimination had to directly impact every women in Walmart, and additionally, that the solution must be the same for each individual problem. Because that wasn’t the case, there was no commonality that existed in the case, leading to the lawsuit falling through.

In the Wal-Mart v. Dukes case, the Supreme Court said the women could not sue as a group (class-action). The Court explained that they did not have “commonality,” which means they didn’t all share the same problem that could be solved in one case.

The women said local managers were unfair, but the Court said managers made different decisions in different stores, so there wasn’t one big problem affecting everyone the same way. Without this, they couldn’t sue as one group.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Dukes v. Walmart fundamentally changed how workplace discrimination cases could be pursued through class action lawsuits. The case, representing 1.5 million female Walmart employees alleging systematic gender discrimination, was struck down in a decision hinged on a seemingly technical legal concept: “commonality.”

What’s fascinating about this case is how the Court, mainly through Justice Scalia’s majority opinion, redefined what constitutes sufficient commonality for a class action. While traditionally, class members just needed to share common “questions of law or fact,” Scalia raised the bar significantly. Under the new interpretation, plaintiffs needed to demonstrate not just a common problem but also a common solution that could remedy all members’ grievances “in a single stroke.”

This might sound reasonable at first glance, but consider what this meant in practice. The Court essentially said that because different women at Walmart experienced discrimination in different ways – some denied specific promotions, others paid less than male colleagues, others facing hostile work environments – they couldn’t be considered a unified class. As Scalia put it, there wasn’t enough “glue holding the alleged reasons for all those decisions together.” But here’s what makes this reasoning problematic- it fundamentally misunderstands how modern workplace discrimination typically operates. As the Walmart case demonstrated, discrimination often manifests through countless individual decisions, biased corporate culture, and subtle systemic barriers. The statistical evidence was striking – women made up 72% of hourly employees but only 34% of management, and the wage gap increased every year after 1997, even though women had better performance ratings and longer tenure.

The implications of this decision extend far beyond Walmart. By setting such a high bar for commonality, the Court made it extraordinarily difficult for employees to challenge systemic discrimination at large companies through class actions. After all, the larger the company, the harder it becomes to show the kind of uniform discrimination the Court now requires.