Walmart Case Process

Supreme Court Case Process This case was about the Supreme Court’s judgement of the allegations that Walmart was committing discrimination against women in salary, bonuses and training. In 2001, six female Walmart employees filed suit against them in US federal court and in 2003 the plaintiffs amended the complaint requesting that the court certify the case as a class action law suit and include all current and former female Walmart employees. They stated that the discrimination faced by the original plaintiffs was systematic in nature and affected all women employed by Walmart. This process requires the legal counsel to clearly “define a class” of individuals that are represented as the group. A judge must determine that they meet the requirements to …show more content…
Supreme Court threw out the largest sex discrimination lawsuit in American history with a 5-4 decision. The five-member court majority including Justice Antonin Scalia stated “that in order to sue as a single class, the women would have to point to a discriminatory policy that affected all of them”, and the court found they could not. The majority opinion of the justices ruled against the certification of the class and dismissed Walmart of the case.
There were four dissenting justices and included the court's three female justices. They all agreed the lower courts used the wrong certifying standard in the nationwide class. They also indicated the case should of gone back to the lower courts for a another review to determine whether the class could be certified using a stricter standard. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the dissenters, pointed out that a company-wide policy against discrimination can be undermined, by supervisors that have discretion, make decisions without standards, often on the basis of biases are even unrecognized by the supervisors themselves. A dissenting opinion is in difference to that of the majority opinion and is also referred to as a minority