Consumer Law

Supreme Court Grants Cert in Major Class-Action Case, Rewrites Question

By Deepak Gupta

by Deepak Gupta

This morning, the Supreme Court granted certiorari in a closely watched class-action case from the Ninth Circuit, Wal-Mart v. Dukes.  Although Dukes is an employment case, involving allegations of gender discrimination -- it's been called the largest class action in history -- the case is likely to have major implications for consumer class actions as well.

Dukes has already been the subject of a lot of press attention. In fact, I can't remember the last time a dispute between private parties garnered as much press at the cert stage, before the Court had even considered it.  The chatter increased even more when the Court emerged from a recent conference without granting or denying the petition. As some observers had predicted, the Court took the additional time to tinker with the two questions presented in Wal-Mart's petition:

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on December 06, 2010 (boomark / email).