An article that caught about a Wal-Mart challenge to a class action they face that accueses them of widespread sexual discrimination against female employees. Here is a link

The gist of it is that Wal-Mart think national class actions deny them their right to face their accusers, and that instead of one national case, they should be organised on a store-by-store basis at state level.

Other big organisations facing class actions are watching the case with interest.

Do you think that Wal-Mart's position is constitutionally valid? Why, or why not?

If the Wal-Mart position is found to be valid, what are the implications for class actions in general?

Do you think that the outcome(s) you foresee is/are desirable or not? Why?

Wal-Mart has a lot of ammunition here. For example, the Constitution limits the Supreme Court to rule only on specific cases. While it has long been held that one specific case can have many litigants, the problem with some class actions is that the facts of each allegation might be completely different. Class actions make sense when a single deed harms many people, but it seems in the Wal-Mart case that many very different deeds are being alleged, not just one. So I think in this particular case, there should be a separate lawsuit for each alleged wrongdoing.



It will probably only limit the few categories of class actions where each member of the class is alleging a different incidence of harm. The class actions involving one incidence harming large numbers of people will probably remain the tort industry's major source of revenue for many years to come.



Sometimes the powerful harm the powerless, so sometimes a class action or something like it is the best way to right a wrong. However, I think the people who have been wronged should have to prove that they were wronged. In some cases, like an Enron, one set of crimes were committed that harmed the whole action class.

But the ultimate outcome of class actions are very often bad. I've gotten a dollar from Apple for selling me a defective $2000 monitor, and the result was that no one with a bad monitor could ever win another suit against Apple. The damages were assessed at $100 per member, of which the lawyers took $99. So, the class action system is broke.

In the balance, I would rather have powerful people be kept in check by the fear of class action suits, but something still needs to be done about how much of the fines that the lawyers can take away from the victims.

I guess I'd like to see a class action lawsuit against any class action lawyers who pocket most of the money that was supposed to go to the innocent victims.