Supreme Court Walmart Ruling Shakes Up Employment Class Actions
Supreme Court Walmart Ruling Shakes Up Employment Class Actions
The Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, heralded last term as a game-changer in employment class actions, has lived up to the hype.
Since the Court issued the Dukes decision in June, it has been cited by lower courts 260 times, according to a report issued on Monday by law firm Seyfarth Shaw. In comparison, the equally influential case, AT&T Mobility v. Concepcion, was cited just 215 times over the same period.
(In its opinion, the Supreme Court addressed whether a class of up to 1.5 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees could sue the giant retailer collectively. The proposed class of women, whose positions at the company varied widely, claimed they were paid less than men and were unfairly passed up for promotions. But the Court ruled the group of women could not sue collectively because they did not have enough in common. )
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Since the Dukes decision, defendants in a variety of class actions have flooded courts with motions challenging the certification of large classes of plaintiffs. In employment disputes, the motions have been raised in cases alleging discrimination and violation of labor laws. The defendants have argued that claims made by plaintiffs lacked commonality. Some defendants have also used the ruling as a tool to have class claims dismissed even before the issue of class certification is addressed.
In November, for example, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a class action against Universal Health Card, LLC and Coverdell & Company, Inc. The case alleged the companies violated the consumer-protection laws of many states through deceptive advertorials. But the court held the variation in the claims and the different state laws involved were “neither efficient nor workable” under class action rules. It was the first time since the Dukes ruling that a federal circuit addressed the propriety of filing a motion to dismiss class claims at the initial pleading stage, according to the Seyfarth report.
http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2012/01/10/230525.htm
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