{"id":297,"date":"2021-03-29T02:37:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-29T02:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hlsorgs3stg.wpenginepowered.com\/hpla\/?p=297"},"modified":"2021-03-31T03:31:14","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T03:31:14","slug":"dukes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/2021\/03\/29\/dukes\/","title":{"rendered":"This Day in History: Wal-Mart v. Dukes Argued"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this day 10 years ago, lawyers Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. and Joseph M. Sellers each stood behind the lectern to argue the case Wal-Mart v. Dukes<\/em> before the U.S. Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

Betty Dukes brought a class action under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, alleging that Wal-Mart had given its local managers excessive discretion over pay and promotions, which had been exercised disproportionately in favor of men. A federal district court certified Dukes\u2019s class, which included approximately 1.5 million women, including all those who presently worked or had previously worked at a Wal-Mart store since 1998. The 9th Circuit subsequently affirmed the certification of the class.<\/p>\n

On March 29, 2011, the parties met in the Supreme Court to argue whether or not the class adequately fulfilled the commonality requirement of Rule 23(a). As those familiar with the case know, Wal-Mart prevailed. Justice Scalia, delivering the opinion of the Court, stated that in order for commonality to be found, the plaintiffs needed to show that Wal-Mart \u201coperated under a general policy of discrimination\u201d and the testimony of sociologist Dr. William Bielby that Wal-Mart was \u201cvulnerable\u201d to gender discrimination, was insufficient for the Court.<\/p>\n

Wal-Mart v. Dukes<\/em> stands today as a difficult bar for plaintiffs\u2019 side litigation. Now, in order to certify a class, a court must conduct a \u201crigorous analysis\u201d to determine whether or not the class meets all requirements of Rule 23(a). And the Supreme Court has held that such an analysis will frequently \u201centail some overlap with the merits of the plaintiff’s underlying claim\u201d meaning that before the litigation is even fully underway, plaintiffs must, effectively, establish portions of their claims. Though the underlying facts of the Wal-Mart v. Dukes<\/em> case are abhorrent, the law produced in the case is problematic as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On this day 10 years ago, lawyers Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. and Joseph M. Sellers each stood behind the lectern […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1937,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-day-in-history","tag-class-action"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1937"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/orgs.law.harvard.edu\/hpla\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}