In Betty Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs, Representing more than 1.5 million female workers, the lawsuit claimed that sex-based pay and promotion discrimination violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Lack of “commonality” was the Court’s main reason for dismissing the class-action lawsuit.
In class action lawsuit, commonality means that each member of the class has a similar legal problem that can be solved in the same manner for all. The Court, led by Justice Scalia, decided in a 5-4 ruling that the class did not meet the commonality requirement of Rule 23, which means that there were not enough “questions of law or fact” that were shared by the class. Scalia said that instead of just having a common issue, the plaintiffs also needed to have a common solution. The cases of the female employees could not be litigated together because they did not encounter the same discriminatory actions by the same managers in the same stores.

The Supreme Court ruled that the women in the Wal-Mart V. Dukes case could not bring a class-action lawsuit because they lacked commonality. The court ruled that because judgments were made by individual managers rather than by a corporate policy, there was insufficient common evidence of discrimination across all Wal-Mart locations.

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).