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 made the decision in the Wal-Mart Case that there was not enough evidence to conduct a class. With this, Dukes had a stake in both legal and social matters that went beyond the women’s claims and Wal-Mart’s employment practices. The court had rules that the women’s additional demand for back pay could only belong in a b(3) claim, which would be consumer class actions. Unfortunately, this only caused the women’s class status to start back where they were. The Supreme Court also rules that the class represented, failed to meet Rules 23’s commonality requirement, that there be “questions of law or fact” common to the class. Due to this Supreme Court decision, the 1.5 million female Wal-Mart employees were not all denied the same promotion, the same pay raise, or insulted, belittled, or obstructed by the same manager in the same store, their cases could not legitimately be litigated all at once.