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 Wal-Mart v Dukes, the Supreme Court say that the women wasn’t able to join together in one big class because they didn’t share a clearer problem. The court explained that every Wal- Mart store and manager behaved differently, so the women couldn’t prove that company was influencing one rule or policy that affected all of them. Yes their situation was different but the lawsuit couldn’t move forward. For example, if Amazon or Doordash workers trying to sue the company tiger and each worker had a different manager there’s different rules, etc. The court might deny the case due to many people coming together to sue in one lawsuit. Unless you show there’s proof of harm being done.

The Supreme Court decided that roughly 1.5 million female employees could not bring their discrimination claims as a single, nationwide class-action lawsuit, and it justified this decision by concluding that the women did not meet the legal requirement of commonality, which requires all members of a class to share a common question that can be answered in the same way for everyone. The Court explained that Wal-Mart did not have a uniform, company-wide discriminatory policy and that decisions about pay and promotions were made independently by thousands of individual managers, meaning the women could not show they all experienced the same kind of discrimination in the same way. Because of this lack of a shared, central issue, the Court ruled that the group could not proceed as a class.

1. What is the difference between gender and sex?

Sex is a biological classification based on physical characteristics such as chromosomes, hormones, and reproductive anatomy.
Gender, on the other hand, is a social and cultural concept that refers to the roles, identities, and expectations that society associates with people.
In simple terms, sex relates to biology, while gender relates to identity and social roles.

2. Describe the difference between a cisgender and a transgender person.

A cisgender person is someone whose gender identity matches the sex they were assigned at birth.
A transgender person is someone whose gender identity does not match the sex they were assigned at birth.
This means that while a cisgender person’s internal sense of gender aligns with their assigned sex, a transgender person’s internal sense of gender differs from it.

3. What is gender expression?

Gender expression is the outward way a person presents their gender through actions, clothing, hairstyle, voice, and other forms of appearance or behavior.
It is how someone chooses to show their gender to the world, and it may or may not align with that person’s gender identity.

DB 12.1

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).

The supreme court ruled against the employees, stating that it could not continue as a class-action lawsuit, but instead, it would need to be broken up into individual lawsuits for smaller groups. The supreme couse decision was based on commonality, which is a requirement for a class-action lawsuit, which defines that the lawsuit represents the same experience by the majority of people represented on the case. In this case, the supreme court states that the lawsuit did not represent that majority so it could not be ruled as such.

So even though Wal-mart had discriminatory policies, they didn’t have that written os specificied anywhere, even though in reality that was the truth for the workers involved in the case. When reading about this case and writing this response, I can’t help but think again about where the government power resides and who it rules for. This could be a case where the supreme court could rule in favor of women that were being discriminated against, but instead, the supreme court ruled in favor of the multibilionaire company.

What did the Supreme Court decide in the Wal-Mart case, and why?

The Supreme Court decided that the huge lawsuit brought by over a million female Walmart workers could not move forward as a class action case.

The Court argued that the women did not have enough in common because Walmart let individual managers make their own decisions about pay and promotions. Since every store and every manager acted differently, the Court said there was no single policy that discriminated against all the women in the same way. In other words, there wasn’t anything holding all their experiences together.

In the article it explains that even though many of the women showed evidence of unfair treatment, the Court believed their experiences were too different from each other to be treated as one big group. As a result, the class action was denied.

The article also suggests this decision makes it harder for women to fight discrimination together, because the legal system requires them to prove they were all harmed in the exact same way, even when discrimination can happen is more than one way. the Court justified its decision by saying that a class action needs to have a common problem with a common solution, The women didn’t all equally experience the same discrimination, therefore couldn’t be treated as one big group in court as the issues didn’t align.

The Supreme Court said the women suing Wal-Mart couldn’t do it as one big, nationwide lawsuit. The main reason is that they didn’t have enough in common legally. To have a class-action suit, everyone in the group has to have basically the same legal problem. The Court said these women didn’t prove they all faced the same type of discrimination because of one company rule. See, Wal-Mart let each store manager decide about pay raises and who gets promoted. That means any discrimination probably wasn’t the same at every store. Because of this, the Court felt the women couldn’t prove they were all hurt in the same way, which you need for a class action. The Court stressed that without a clear company-wide policy causing the problem, their cases were too different to be lumped together. So, the case was thrown out as a class action. Now, each woman has to sue on her own instead of as part of a big group. This ruling makes it tougher for lots of workers to sue big companies for discrimination.

These questions are based on the “Sex Class Action” article:

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).