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 decided to give all the women that were in the class action lawsuit back pay and also it was justified that they cannot discriminate against women. The commonality is the women suing for equal justification and they are all suing for one common reason.

The court dismissed the Walmart case, they decided they did not have enough evidence to classify it as a class action lawsuit. When discharging the case they told the women they did not have enough in common for it to be considered a commonality. To be something “clearly” not given cause of obvious reasons. A class action lawsuit is described as something that is being fought for that takes away human rights. To deny, this meant the women didn’t deserve to get paid the same as a man which is just bull, it’s Walmart how much can the things you do for your job differ? ( I am not putting Walmart or any retail worker down, or don’t mean to sound like I am, I am just stating facts about jobs within retail ).

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).