What did the Supreme Court decision in the Wal-Mart case? And more importantly, how did it justify its decision? (HINT: the key word here is “commonality” (and how it relates to “class-action lawsuit”). Try to understand this legal term, as it is key to the court’s decision).

Walmart vs Dukes was a case broken down to its logistics. It was concluded that 1.5 million women could not partake in a class-action lawsuit. The decision was finalized by “commonality”. All the women in the case served different positions at work. It also showed that there was no “real” pattern. Though the women in the case did not receive the same pay as their male co-workers, other women who were also employed did not have this issue. There was no commonality between them therefore, the case was not granted a win.

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 the reading, Betty Dukes was in the process of filing a Class act lawsuit against Wal-mart for pay gaps due to gender discrimination. Betty Dukes filed the case and was given a ruling that the women did not qualify for back pay since all of their instances were not in common. Like same positions, or same stores, etc.

1. In the event of the Walmart case, the supreme court decided that about 1.5 million women were not able or capable to be accepted to serve as a right class plaintiffs. Specifically, to be plaintiffs for a lawsuit for work bias against Walmart. The reason why they went through with this decision is because they justified it by claiming there is no commonality within the group of women in the lawsuit.

1.) In Wal-Mart v. Dukes, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Walmart. To justify this, the majority stated that, because the amount of people represented by the class-action suit was so large, they could not all have commonality. They argued that the represented group in class action suits need a common problem and a common solution. Dukes represented women who were protesting Walmart’s culture of sexism, but not any discrimination written into their rules or stemming from one particular person. They also did not all have the same sexist type of problem (i.e. they weren’t all denied the same position in favor of a less experienced male candidate). The majority argued that, because they did not all have the same problem, there was no way that they could solve their issue with one sweeping solution.

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).

In Dukes case, a group of women who alleged discrimination on the basis of gender filed a suit against Wal-Mart. The action was then changed to a class action, with all women represented by the original small group of women who sued the company. And this class was the largest ever class. In Walmart case the Supreme Court decide that the women’s additional demand for back pay which would amount billions of dollars in withheld wages to women across the country could only belong in a b(3) claim. There was a mis qualification under the class that they filed the complaints under b2 claim. The monetary award in this case could not be applied to all members of the class. Thus this rule does not allow class certification in this situation. Therefore, they were denied the back pay due to wrong classification of the lawsuit.

Second, they make commonality the center of their decision. Commonality means a series of same characteristics that a group endorse. The Court lays down a commonality criteria for class certification, under which more than one million women with a common employer will have to prove they were all subject to the same discriminatory employment policy, to be certified as a class. Because 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. A class action is an exception, and it must be justified by the fact that a class representative must be part of the class in fact, interest and injury. It is like all the female in this class action did meet all the same characteristics for this litigation process.

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 term means, as it is key to the court’s decision). 

A lawsuit was filed against Walmart in 2001 which included 1.5 million female workers. This case accused the company of systemic gender discrimination, stating that they paid women who worked at Walmart significantly less than men. The company continuously passed over women for promotions, which is considered a violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This is a law that prevents employers from discriminating based on race, creed, or gender. However, when the case concluded in 2011, Justice Antonin Scalia announced that the court had ruled in favor of Walmart. He explained that the court’s decision was because the opposing side had failed to prove that the class did not have issues of law or fact in common. He justified this ruling by maintaining that in order to claim “commonality” the class in question needed to have both a common problem and a common solution to that problem. This was so it could equally reimburse all 1.5 million women at the same time. His rational was that all the women represented in this case did not lose out on the same promotion or raise, nor were all mistreated in the same way, they could not conduct this case including all the women at once.  

Even though these women didn’t experience the same discrimination and asking for damages might have contributed to their loss, this had extraordinarily little to do with what the case was originally about. Additionally, it had seemed as if Scalia took some liberties with his phrasing, resulting in women, who have been historically discriminated against for hundreds of years, losing the case on a technicality. The goal for the women in this case was to expose Walmart for making many of its decisions based on gender. The evidence of the case revealed that although there was a policy forbidding discrimination, there was inherent sexism present in Walmart’s across the country. The sexism was far too prevalent for it to be a random occurrence, with only a few employers behaving inappropriately. By revealing this discrepancy, the Dukes case illuminated the gender discrimination that exists in the country today. While no company outwardly says that women cannot advance it doesn’t mean that women aren’t discriminated against or receiving the same pay as their male counterparts.  

Regardless of this truth, Scalia remained in defense of Walmart and alluded to the fact that the company forbids all acts of sex discrimination. His incredibly dismissive remarks are a painful example of how people can easily brush off sexism. Unfortunately, is something many women have become accustomed to, particularly in the workplace. Many have learned to just accept it as commonplace, or report the indiscretion, which generally falls on deaf ears. This results in several women staying silent because they don’t believe that their complaints will be taken seriously. 

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Walmart in Wal-Mart v. Dukes. To rationalize this, the majority attempted to claim that because the number of people represented by the class-action suit was so large, they just can not all have commonality. They contended that the represented group in class action suits requires a common problem and a common solution. Dukes signified women who were protesting Walmart’s sexism culture, but not any marginalization written into their rules or caused by a single person. Individuals also did not all have the same sexist problem. The majority argued that because they did not all share the same problem, they could not solve their problem with a single broad solution. The Supreme Court ruled that 1.5 million females could not be authorized as a proper class of plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit alleging workplace bias against Wal-Mart. It warranted its own decision by citing similarities. The commonality is described as the common people.  As a result, the Supreme Court ruled that the defendants did not share enough commonalities to constitute and establish a class.

1. First the court decided that the women suing Wal-Mart could not seek back pay because they filed as a b(2) class instead of a b(3) class. What solidified them as a b(2) class was that they were suing under Title VII. The women’s demand for back pay could only belong in a class b(3) lawsuit. This misclassification compromised the women’s statues of suing as a class. Secondly the court decided in a 5-4 ruling that the suing class failed to meet Rule 23’s commonality requirement. The court argued that since all the women were not denied the same promotions, the same pay raise, or insulted, belittled or obstructed by the same manager in the same store, their case could not legitimately be litigated at once.

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 decided to put an end to Betty Dukes v. Walmart stores which was a case that pitted over 1.5 million female Walmart workers against the country’s largest private employer. The court made commonality central to their ruling. The article states, “Scalia argued that to claim “commonality” a class must not only share a common problem but also a common solution to that problem—one that would compensate all members equally in a single stroke.” Throughout the year’s many female workers for Walmart noticed that they were being discriminated against and treated differently than men were. women were being paid less although they were doing the same type of work. The article mentioned how a woman who worked for walmart for many years trained a new young men to later find out she was receiving less then his pay.

In the Wal-Mart case, the Supreme Court decided that the 1.5 million females are not capable to be approved as a right class of plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit for work bias against Wal-Mart. It justified its decision because of commonality. The commonality is defined to be the common people, for example, the type of class the common people come from, socio-economic class. Therefore, in 2011, the Supreme Court judged Walmart’s turn when they said that the plaintiffs did not have enough in common to comprise and to form a whole class.