Home › Case briefs › Civil Procedure

Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

United States District Court for the Northern District of California · Civil Procedure

Civil ProcedureClass CertificationRule 23(a)(2)CommonalityEmployment Discriminationclass actioncommonalityRule 23

Facts

Plaintiffs alleged that Wal-Mart discriminated against women in hourly pay, salaried pay, Management Trainee promotions, and Support Manager promotions. The proposed classes covered three regions comprising 250 stores and challenged decisions made by hundreds of different managers at regional, district, and store levels. Plaintiffs offered revised statistical analyses, anecdotal declarations, evidence of a shared management culture, and several allegedly specific practices such as promotion-from-within, failure to post openings, relocation requirements, subjective promotion criteria, and field compensation guidelines. Wal-Mart's decision-making structure left substantial discretion to local managers across the challenged pay and promotion decisions.

Issue

Whether plaintiffs' revised regional class satisfied Rule 23(a)(2)'s commonality requirement for their Title VII disparate treatment and disparate impact claims. More specifically, did plaintiffs provide significant proof of a general policy of discrimination or identify a specific employment practice applicable across the proposed class that could tie all class members' claims together?

Rule

To certify a class under Rule 23(a)(2) in this context, plaintiffs must show a common question capable of generating a common answer for the entire class. For disparate treatment claims, plaintiffs must provide significant proof that the employer operated under a general policy of discrimination affecting the entire class. For disparate impact claims, plaintiffs must identify a specific employment practice that actually applies across the proposed class during the class period; a policy of delegating discretion to local managers, or vague criteria that leave managers free to exercise discretion, does not supply commonality.

🔒

See the holding & full analysis

Create a free KwikCourt account to unlock the rest of this brief — and practice the case.

The court's holding and reasoning
Doctrine tests, pitfalls & exam hypotheticals
10 practice questions + 4 AI-graded essays on this case

Free sample · practice this case

Test yourself

One of 10 multiple-choice questions for this case. Pick an answer to see why.

A group of 18,000 women employed by Trailway Outfitters in Colorado and Utah seeks certification of a regional Title VII class. They challenge hourly pay, manager salaries, and two different promotion tracks, all decided by store, district, and regional supervisors across 140 stores.

Which is the strongest argument against commonality under Rule 23(a)(2)?

Explanation. Rule 23(a)(2) requires a common question capable of generating a common answer for the entire class. The majority reasoned that merely cutting down the number of class members does not cure the defect where plaintiffs still attack several kinds of decisions across hundreds of managers. The problem is not size alone, but the absence of a classwide glue tying the claims together.