- 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).
The Supreme Court didn’t make a decision in the Wal-Mart case because they dismissed it due to the fact that all the women suing weren’t making the same complaint against the same person. According to them the case didn’t fit the description of a class-action lawsuit despite the fact that only women were suing. Only one gender suing showed that discrimination within the company was only towards women and not men. No commonality, as the Supreme Court stated, didn’t let women sue as a whole. This meant that an individual would need their own lawyer, 1.5 million women were suing.
