Wal-Mart v. Dukes

On March 31, 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Wal-Mart v. Dukes, a class action employment discrimination case that has worked its way through the legal system for the past decade. Although the original case involved allegations that Wal-Mart discriminated against its female employees on a national scale, the issues before the Supreme Court focused on whether the case could proceed as a nationwide class-action. In other words, does a group of potentially 500,000 plaintiffs who worked at thousands of different stores nationwide share enough legal and factual issues between their individual cases to bring a class-action? The Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision sometime in June.