Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes

Background

A group of current and former female Wal‑Mart employees—about 1.5 million people—suing over pay and promotion practices asked to proceed as a single nationwide class. They sought companywide orders, backpay, and other relief; the District Court certified the class and the Ninth Circuit largely affirmed.

Reasoning

The Court asked whether all class members share a single legal question that can be resolved for everyone at once. It held they do not. The plaintiffs relied on Wal‑Mart’s policy of local managerial discretion, statistical studies by experts, about 120 employee anecdotes, and a sociologist’s framework. The Court emphasized that the sociologist, Dr. William Bielby, conceded he could not estimate how often stereotyped thinking affected decisions. It found those materials inadequate to prove a uniform, company‑wide discriminatory policy, noted Wal‑Mart’s formal anti‑discrimination rules, and ruled that deciding backpay for millions requires individualized inquiries. The Court therefore reversed class certification and rejected methods that would extrapolate awards from a sample “trial by formula.”

Real world impact

Because the Court reversed certification, the women cannot proceed as a single nationwide class under the certification rules the Court described. The opinion says monetary backpay claims generally belong in a different class procedure that protects notice and opt‑outs, or must be proved through individual proceedings. The decision resolves class‑certification rules here, not the final question whether Wal‑Mart actually discriminated; the merits remain for further litigation.

Dissents or concurrances

Justice Ginsburg agreed that (b)(2) certification for backpay was improper but disagreed about commonality; she would have left open certification issues for further consideration and cautioned against mixing different class‑certification tests.