The Supreme Court decided that the women suing Wal-Mart could not be part of a class-action lawsuit. The reason was lack of commonality. This means their cases were too different from each other — they worked in different stores, had different managers, and there was no clear company policy that affected all of them the same way. Because of this, the Court said they had to file separate lawsuits, not one big one together.

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).