These questions are based on the “Sex Class Action” article:
- 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).
1.The Supreme ruled in favor of Wal-Mart in the Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart case. The Supreme Court decided unanimously that the 1.5 million women could not be endorsed as a class in a class-action lawsuit. Class-action is a law that falls under Rule 23 of the Civil Procedure, which specifies, among other things, what kind of relief classes can seek. For a case such as that magnitude, it had to meet the commonality requirement, which means that the case had to provide or share common questions of law. Thus, failing to meet the requirement for Rule 23 commonality. The commonality concept says that “a class must share not only a common problem but also share a common solution. The court argued that not all the 1.5 million women were not denied the same promotion, increased wages, insults, or belittled by the same manager in the same store across the country. Therefore, their cases could not be legitimately prosecuted at the same time or at once.