These questions are based on the “Sex Class Action” article:
- 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).
D.B 12.1 Chris Pomales
In the Wal-Mart Stores sex class action lawsuit, the Supreme Court (5-4) threw out the massive class-action lawsuit representing 1.5 million women. First, all nine justices agreed the women wrongly used a rule of law because they asked for big back-pay damages, which belong under a stricter rule. More importantly, the conservative majority, said the class also failed the basic “commonality” requirement. Justice Scalia argued that millions of separate pay and promotion decisions made by thousands of managers weren’t truly “common” unless there was one clear company-wide policy causing the harm. Statistical patterns and shared culture weren’t enough “glue.” Some people say this new, tougher definition of commonality makes huge discrimination cases almost impossible to bring as class actions.