The Supreme Court case Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes was a landmark case concerning the certification of class actions. The Court denied the request of the plaintiff class of almost 1.5 million women to combine into a single action against Wal-Mart for sex-based employment discrimination.

The central bulletin of the Court’s decision is found under the banner of ‘commonality,’ which requires that the members of the class have common questions of law or fact. Yet the plaintiffs find it very difficult to show that Wal-Mart’s managers exercised their discretion to make pay, promotion, or other employment decisions uniformly, in a way constitutive of a corporate policy.

The Court found that the claims presented in this case were too diverse and too individualistic to satisfy the commonality requirement. They concluded that there was insufficient evidence established indicating that Wal-Mart maintained a generalized discrimination policy.

This case exposes the complications of certifying class action for thousands upon thousands of class members where workplace discrimination allegations are involved. It strongly emphasizes establishing some base commonality among all class members wishing to bring a class action.