Supreme Court Halts Class Action Discrimination Lawsuit

by Katie Colvin, Esq.


“Wheeeeewh!”

If it wasn’t storms or tornadoes whooshing through the country on June 20, 2011 – it was a collective sigh of relief by large, nation-wide employers upon learning that the Supreme Court had reversed the class certification in Wal-Mart v. Dukes (No. 10-277).

The plaintiff class – seeking damages estimated close to one billion dollars – consisted of approximately 1.5 million hourly and salaried, current and former, female employees of Wal-Mart who claimed sex discrimination in pay and promotions.

In short, the Supreme Court overturned the lower courts when it decided that the plaintiff class fell short of satisfying the “commonality” burden imposed by Federal Rules. Rule 23(a) requires a class seeking certification to prove that it has common “questions of law or fact;” thereby dictating that such claims are capable of class-wide resolution. In other words, there must be a common answer to the common questions presented by the proposed class.

Here, the key inquiry was into the reasons for the alleged adverse employment actions; yet the plaintiff class hoped to sue for millions of employment decisions all at once. The Court reasoned that, absent some sort of “glue holding together the alleged reasons for those decisions, it will be impossible to say that examination of all the class members’ claims will produce a common answer to the crucial discrimination question.”


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