Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes

Class actions: the certification of the plaintiff class was not consistent with Rule 23(a); Rule 23(a)(2) requires a party seeking class certification to prove that the class has common “questions of law or fact.” Their claims must depend upon a common contention of such a nature that it is capable of classwide resolution—which means that determination of its truth or falsity will resolve an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the claims in one stroke.   Here, proof of commonality necessarily overlaps with respondents’ merits contention that Wal-Mart engages in a pattern or practice of discrimination. The crux of a Title VII inquiry is “the reason for a particular employment decision,” Cooper v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, 467 U. S. 867, 876, and respondents wish to sue for millions of employment decisions at once. Without some glue holding together the alleged reasons for those decisions, it will be impossible to say that examination of all the class members’ claims will produce a common answer to the crucial discrimination question; General Telephone Co. of Southwest v. Falcon, 457 U. S. 147, describes the proper approach to commonality. On the facts of this case, the conceptual gap between an individual’s discrimination claim and “the existence of a class of persons who have suffered the same injury,” id., at 157–158, must be bridged by “significant proof that an employer operated under a general policy of discrimination,” id., at 159, n. 15. Such proof is absent here. Wal-Mart’s announced policy forbids sex discrimination, and the company has penalties for denials of equal opportunity. Respondents’ only evidence of a general discrimination policy was a sociologist’s analysis asserting that Wal-Mart’s corporate culture made it vulnerable to gender bias. But because he could not estimate what percent of Wal-Mart employment decisions might be determined by stereotypical thinking, his testimony was worlds away from “significant proof” that Wal-Mart “operated under a general policy of discrimination.”; the only corporate policy that the plaintiffs’ evidence convincingly establishes is Wal-Mart’s “policy” of giving local supervisors discretion over employment matters. While such a policy could be the basis of a Title VII disparate-impact claim, recognizing that a claim “can” exist does not mean that every employee in a company with that policy has a common claim. In a company of Wal-Mart’s size and geographical scope, it is unlikely that all managers would exercise their discretion in a common way without some common direction. Respondents’ attempt to show such direction by means of statistical and anecdotal evidence falls well short; Respondents’ backpay claims were improperly certified under Rule 23(b)(2); claims for monetary relief may not be certified under Rule 23(b)(2), at least where the monetary relief is not incidental to the requested injunctive or declaratory relief. It is unnecessary to decide whether monetary claims can ever be certified under the Rule because, at a minimum, claims for individualized relief, like backpay, are excluded. Rule 23(b)(2) applies only when a single, indivisible remedy would provide relief to each class member. The Rule’s history and structure indicate that individualized monetary claims belong instead in Rule 23(b)(3), with its procedural protections of predominance, superiority, mandatory notice, and the right to opt out; because Rule 23 cannot be interpreted to “abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right,” 28 U. S. C. §2072(b), a class cannot be certified on the premise that Wal-Mart will not be entitled to litigate its statutory defenses to individual claims (U.S.S.Ct., 20.06.11, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, J. Scalia).

Action de classe : pour obtenir de la Cour la certification d’une classe, il faut démontrer que la classe est confrontée à des questions juridiques ou à des questions de fait communes. Les prétentions communes doivent être capables de résolution judiciaire pour tous les membres de la classe. Dans un litige basé sur le Titre VII de la loi fédérale sur les droits civils, la preuve des prétentions communes des membres l’emporte sur le bien-fondé de l’allégation selon laquelle l’employeur pratique une politique de discrimination. En effet, le point central d’une action fondée sur le Titre VII est la détermination des motifs à l’origine d’une décision particulière de l’employeur. Dans la présente espèce, les requérants entendent agir en une seule fois pour contester des millions de décisions de l’employeur. Sans élément qui lie les motifs à la base de ces décisions, il est impossible de dire que l’examen des motifs à la base de chaque décision contestée de l’employeur produira un résultat discriminatoire identique. La distance entre une plainte individuelle pour discrimination et l’existence d’une classe de personnes ayant subi le même préjudice doit être comblée par une preuve significative que l’employeur opère selon une politique générale de discrimination. Une telle preuve est absente en l’espèce. La politique officielle de l’employeur Wal-Mart interdit la discrimination fondée sur le sexe, et l’entreprise a prévu des pénalités pour les cas de violations de la politique d’égale opportunité. Comme unique preuve d’une politique générale de discrimination, les demandeurs disposent de l’analyse d’un sociologue soutenant que la culture d’entreprise de Wal-Mart la rend vulnérable à la discrimination fondée sur le sexe. Mais comme il ne pouvait pas estimer quel pourcentage des décisions de l’employeur était fondé sur un raisonnement stéréotypé, son témoignage est à mille lieues de satisfaire au critère de la preuve significative que l’employeur opère selon une politique générale de discrimination.