The Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes (2011) came to the decision now to allow some 1.5 million female employees class action lawsuits to proceed. This was solely based on the legal idea of commonality, which requires that plaintiffs have enough legal and factual relationship in order to be regarded as a group. Justice Scalia, on behalf of the majority said that “without some glue holding the alleged reasons for all those decisions together,” there could be no clear way to answer the question of, “Why was I disfavored” for all plaintiffs at once (Tortorici). The Court discovered that each of the women who experienced discrimination were too different, being that pay and promotions were based on a single individual by various managers and not a single company policy. Finally, the Court ruled there was no apparent, common motive for the alleged gender discrimination of all the women, deeming their class action lawsuit unsuitable under legal standards. Dayna Tortorici argues, by redefining commonality so narrowly, “By stripping the Dukes plaintiffs of their technical, legal commonality, the Court had undercut something much more important” (Tortorici). This shows that the courts neglected to acknowledge the systemic discriminations because they focused too much on the legal procedures.
Works Cited
Tortorici, Dayna. “Sex Class Action.” n+1, no. 14, Summer 2012,
