Supreme Court Decision: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. ___ (2011)
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In Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. _(2011) , the United States Supreme Court, divided 5 to 4, refused to allow a class action suit against the retail giant to go forward. In the majority opinion issued on June 20, 2011, Justice Antonin Scalia overturned the class certification of a million and half female employees who alleged discrimination in pay and promotions.
The Court did not determine whether the country's largest private employer actually was guilty of gender bias but only that the women could not proceed as a class.
Justice Scalia wrote that the plaintiffs could not show they would receive "a common answer to the crucial question, why was I disfavored." He noted that the company had a professed policy forbidding discrimination and gave local store managers discretion in implementing this tenet.
Dissenting, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, joined by Justices Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, stated that the plaintiffs had presented evidence of a "gender bias suffused ... corporate culture."
Steven Greenhouse, labor and workplace reporter at the New York Times, provides analysis on this decision in his article, 'Wal-Mart Case Is a Blow for Big Cases and Their Lawyers.'
