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.

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).