That sound you just heard is a collective sigh of relief from employers who were eagerly awaiting the Supreme Court's ruling on the Dukes v. Walmart class action suit. The size of the class action, 1.5 million, was of particular concern to many employers who feared that allowing such a suit to go forward would set a very bad precedent for future litigation.
In a 5-4 decision the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, June 20, 2011 that the plaintiffs in Dukes v. Walmart did not have sufficient commonality to allow the class action suit to proceed. "Commonality requires the plaintiff to demonstrate that the class members have suffered the same injury," Justice Scalia wrote. "This does not mean merely that they have all suffered a violation of the same provision of law. . . . What matters . . . is not the raising of common 'questions' . . . but rather the capacity of a classwide proceeding to generate common answers apt to drive the resolution of the litigation."
Justice Bader, dissenting against the majority opinion, noted that: “The Court gives no credence to the key dispute common to the class: whether Wal-Mart’s discretionary pay and promotion policies are discriminatory…“
The ruling certainly makes it more difficult for future class action claims to go forward and, at the very least, deals a significant blow to gender discrimination in organizations that by corporate culture or regional action, continue to compensate and promote men and women at significantly different rates.
