Courts, Society, Supreme Court

Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Wal-Mart in Important Discrimination Case

As anticipated, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favor of Wal-Mart in an important workplace discrimination case. The Court divided 5-4 in adopting more stringent standards for future cases. From the outset, I viewed this as an extremely bad case that would likely make bad law for those fighting workplace discrimination. It now has.

In Wal-Mart v. Dukes , all of the justices agreed to reverse the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case which would have affected up to 1.6 million women and billions of dollars in damages.

That was the easy part. The justices, however, divided on the elements needed for future such cases. It divided along ideological lines with Justice Antonin Scalia holding that the court must require common elements to be the basis for such class actions. Scalia’s decision also struck hard on the standard, including the rejection of the type of statistical analysis used in this case:

Even if they are taken at face value, these studies are insufficient to establish that respondents’ theory can be proved on a classwide basis. In Falcon, we held that one named plaintiff’s experience of discrimination was insufficient to infer that “discriminatory treatment is typical of [the employer’s employment] practices.” 457 U. S., at 158. A similar failure of inference arises here.

Scalia’s opinion also rejected the ability to seek backpay in the case. He concluded:

The Court of Appeals believed that it was possible to replace such proceedings with Trial by Formula. A sample set of the class members would be selected, as to whom liability for sex discrimination and the backpay owing as a result would be determined in depositions supervised by a master. The percentage of claims determined to be valid would then be applied to the entire remaining class, and the number of (presumptively) valid claims thus derived would be multiplied by the average backpay award in the sample set to arrive at the entire class recovery—without further individualized proceedings. 603 F. 3d, at 625–627. We disapprove that novel project. Because the Rules Enabling Act forbids interpreting Rule 23 to “abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right,” 28 U. S. C. §2072(b); see Ortiz, 527 U. S., at 845, a class cannot be certified on the premise that Wal-Mart will not be entitled to litigate its statutory defenses to individual claims. And because the necessity of that litigation will prevent back- pay from being “incidental” to the classwide injunction, respondents’ class could not be certified even assuming, arguendo, that “incidental” monetary relief can be awarded to a 23(b)(2) class.

This is also a big victory of Chief Justice Alex Kozinski, whose views are expressly embraced by the majority on the Court.

Writing for the dissenting justices, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg insisted that, despite the flaws in the case, there were sufficient facts alleged to maintain a class action based on “Wal-Mart’s [policy of] delegation of discretion over pay and promotions.” She wrote:

The District Court’s identification of a common question, whether Wal-Mart’s pay and promotions policies gave rise to unlawful discrimination, was hardly infirm. The prac- tice of delegating to supervisors large discretion to make personnel decisions, uncontrolled by formal standards, has long been known to have the potential to produce dispa- rate effects. Managers, like all humankind, may be prey to biases of which they are unaware.6 The risk of dis- crimination is heightened when those managers are pre- dominantly of one sex, and are steeped in a corporate culture that perpetuates gender stereotypes.

The standards clarified by the majority would make it extremely difficult to bring such a massive discrimination case in the future, particularly where businesses delegate these decisions to local stores. While the dissenting justices saw evidence of a “culture” of discrimination, that will not do in the future. Indeed, many businesses reading this opinion are likely to reaffirm the delegation of such questions to local store managers to further insulate the company from nationwide class actions. It does not mean that it will bar class actions. It only means that it will practically confine such cases in the future.

Here is the opinion: 10-277
Source: Yahoo

Jonathan Turley

43 thoughts on “Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Wal-Mart in Important Discrimination Case”

  1. 2stupid to breath: Of course, every time a large corporation fucks over workers it makes sure it does it in exactly the same manner so class action will be easy. I believe that is the standard you are suggesting.

    As far as assuming guilt goes, Wally has already been found guilty of discrimination in hiring and promotion of women several times. That’s not the issue.

  2. Of course many here have the silly and ignorant knee-jerk hatred towards WalMart and are sure of their guilt.

    The problem is VERY few of the 1.6 million could even make a reasonable claim that they were discriminated against. Of that small minute percentage a smaller still percentage actually might have a claim they were discriminated against. Of those numbers a small percentage might have a fair claim. Proving they were passed over for advancement because of their gender would be another stumbling block. Treating every female ever employed is obviously asinine and unfair. It would hardly stand up to an appeal.

    So the court doesn’t like that supervisors have a large say in promotions. Seems to me that is the best way to promote someone. The people who are aware of the employees strengths and weaknesses is the only one who can tell who should be promoted. Leaving it up to seniority or some sort of point system would be more unfair and would ensure that less qualified applicants get promoted.

    Let each individual – male or female take his/her case to court if she feels she has been a victim of discrimination. Have no idea of the number of individuals who bring such claims to court but surely it is a very high number. There is no reason to lump it as a class-action other than to make the lawyers the wealthiest people on the planet.

    Like nearly all class-action lawsuits the attorneys would have made billions and the plaintiffs would have received a buy-one-get-one coupon for a DVD of their choice.

    The ruling is not some sort of evil corporate-paid-for-conspiracy action, but one found on solid legal grounds. The only reason it got as far as it did is that Walmart is such a tempting target due to its success at giving people what they want.

  4. dredd,

    I think that so many of the claims are so much dissimilar to make a good case therefore making bad law…..

  5. Let the discrimination by nationwide stealth begin …

    Is this a step in the direction of “all class action cases are local” (like all politics is local)?

  6. SCOTUS is the Corporations new white knight…and women are the bad guys! (who knew…). So I guess the fact that those being discriminated against are all women and that the statistics support the claim is not enuff glue for Mr. Scalia?

    Politics has become too political to be anything but self-serving anymore….

  7. At CNN, Jeffrey Toobin notes that the Court ruled 9-0 to dismiss the class action and that “The facts are so different regarding each of the plaintiffs that it’s not fair to Wal-Mart to lump them into one case.”

    I assume that each plaintiff may still pursue a claim against Walmart and that many claims may be aggregated into smaller class actions where the facts are not “so different” to be unfair to the defendant.

    At the time of the oral argument I recall reading that one of the Justices questioned whether the plaintiff’s theory was integrally sound because it called for both independent local control and uniform control from Walmart headquarters. That information was a strong sign that the class action would not stand.

  10. So, if I understand this correctly, if I can screw over enough people the class action will be so big the USSC will throw it out? Is that correct? And they were able to write some mumbo-jumbo that justified this ‘thinking’?

    I guess they used the precedent of “kill one person & go to jail, kill a thousand & thats OK v. humanity”

  11. Is anyone following the Gang of the Fascist Five on SCOTUS surprised by this?

    That was a rhetorical question.

  13. I would support the idea of individual cases- and damages paid out to each individual based on actual harm but I am afraid such an approach would result in either (or both)-
    1.) A whole lot of individual cases going nowhere because the top lawyers won’t represent a single individual for a small award,
    2.) Hundreds of years later a couple of people’s descendents get a settlement which is worthless due to inflation.
    It reminds me of the Exxon Valdez suit- it was finally settled a years or so ago. Most of the original suitors (?) were dead and the courts had cut the original award by half. It took something like 20 years.

  14. I have two questions for any lawyers on the blog (I am not an attorney) but they may not be valid:
    1.) In your opinion how long would it take for an individual to take a large corporation to court and how much money would it cost in legal time/fees? (Assumptions: individual has a valid case, corporate adversary appeals every decision and each appeal is granted. attorney only works for cash upfront).
    2.) In your opinion is it realistic to believe that the courts are open to all?

    My answers (which could be wrong) 1- more than most people make in a lifetime?, 2- yes- if you are heavily medicated.

  16. I hate these stupid republicans and walmart. This country is so pathetic.

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