Now THIS is a feminist issue

[american-geist.livejournal.com]

Hey friends, enjoy having no rights, forever! Especially ladies, apparently you got discriminated against too many times for the Supreme Court. This country is horrible!

"The Supreme Court put the brakes on a massive job discrimination lawsuit against mega-retailer Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., saying sweeping class-action status that could potentially involve hundreds of thousands of current and former female workers was simply too large.

The ruling Monday was a big victory for the nation's largest private employer, and the business community at large.

The high-profile case– perhaps the most closely watched of the high court's term– is among the most important dealing with corporate versus worker rights that the justices have ever heard, and could eventually impact nearly every private employer, large and small.

The case is Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes (10-277)."



 

Comments

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Moral of the story: If you want to commit a crime, make sure it's big enough so the courts won't bother.

[american-geist.livejournal.com]

Or, if you're going to discriminate, make sure to do it against the largest demographics possible.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

And being a major contributor to Republican politicians can't hurt.

[sophia-daniels.livejournal.com]

human life/rights have never had any real lasting standing against business interests.

i've completely lost faith in our supreme court on this topic. i wonder if any conflicts of interest will come to light... like one of the justices being married to somebody linked to walmart... sorta like what happened with the citizens united case.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

i wonder if any conflicts of interest will come to light... like one of the justices being married to somebody linked to walmart... sorta like what happened with the citizens united case.

What was the Citizen's United conflict?

[not-hothead-yet.livejournal.com]

...what the hell?

I thought that was the POINT of class-action lawsuits as opposed to private lawsuits?!

interesting....

[newrussam.livejournal.com]

And they sure didn't stipulate how many is too many, did they? Now if class-action statute sets no limit on the number of participants, aren't then the Supremes legislating?

Re: interesting....

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

When it's for pro-business purposes, it's called originalism: it's what the founding fathers would've wanted.

Re: interesting....

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

"Too many" is "whatever number of people is necessary to scuttle the class so our corporate masters can get off without consequences".

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

Too big to prosecute?

I'd buy that for a dollar.

[hikarugenji.livejournal.com]

I read the opinion itself, and that article really isn't a fair representation of what the opinion says. It wasn't simply that there were too many people in the case.

A class-action suit requires that all of the plaintiffs' cases be related in such a way that the defendants can use one defense (among other things). The majority opinion felt that the plaintiffs did not demonstrate well enough that all of these cases were really part of one big case, whereas the dissenters did. The issue was not one of "too many people", it was a question over whether the discretion given to individual managers constituted a pattern of discrimination (because the upper management didn't do enough to stop it) or whether the very fact that the mangers were given discretion prevents it from being a pattern.

I'm not too happy with the majority ruling here because it makes it too easy for businesses to get away with this kind of discrimination by looking the other way. But it's totally wrong to say that this case was overturned simply because it was too large.

[newrussam.livejournal.com]

american_geist misrepresented the issue?
Shame, shame, shame!

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

The Supreme court's history is riddled with wrong cases and lsightly off the mark cases that guide, but do not close jurisprudence. If they hadn't made a kitchen sink case, then the Supreme Court would have heard it.

Even the dissenters admitted the class action was too unfocused.

Big businesses, including Wal-Mart, need only fear competent lawyers and the appeal of "mee-too" populism.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

If there's one thing the Obama presidency has taught me, it's that facts are no more important to rabid liberals than they are to rabid conservatives.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

The conservative majority on the Court is so anti-worker, and pro-corporate, that they don't even bother to pretend anymore. As long as the corporations and their supporters keep paying obscene speaking fees to the Justices, and employing their spouses and children, they could commit murder without any consequences.

This is why it annoys me so when people say there's no difference between the parties, or suggest that people shouldn't vote. Elections have consequences. Does anyone think Al Gore would have nominated Samuel Alito or John Roberts? Would Jimmy Carter or Dukakis have nominated the other corporate shillsconservative Justices on the bench?

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

Obama's been packing the courts with far left radical liberals!
(but i agree with your point, obviously Obama's moderate picks are considerably better for the working/middle classes than whoever McCain would have put there)

[hey-its-michael.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Only the ignorant think there is no difference between the parties. SCOTUS is but one area that exemplifies that fact.

[jlc20thmaine.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I needed a laugh today.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

You, uh, realize that this was unanimous, right?

[kharmii.livejournal.com]

Is that why more of the liberal judges voted in favor of the businesses on Kelo vs London?

[telemann.livejournal.com]

As the Supreme Court begins its new term, its sixth with John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice, the reality is that this is the most conservative court since the mid-1930s. Since Richard Nixon ran for president in 1968, conservatives have sought to change constitutional law, and they have succeeded in virtually every area.

During the first years of the Roberts court, it has consistently ruled in favor of corporate power, such as in holding that corporations have the First Amendment right to spend unlimited amounts in independent political campaigns. For the first time in American history, the high court has struck down laws regulating firearms as violations of the Second Amendment and held that the Constitution protects a right of individuals to possess guns. It has dramatically cut back on the rights of criminal defendants, especially as to the exclusion of evidence gained through illegal searches and seizures under the Fourth Amendment and the protections of the Fifth Amendment's privilege against self-incrimination. It has greatly limited the ability of the government to formulate remedies for the segregation of public schools. It has significantly expanded the power of the government to regulate abortions.

As always, the composition of the court is a product of historical accident and presidential elections. From 1968 to 2009, there were only two Democratic appointees to the Supreme Court, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer, in part because President Jimmy Carter is one of the few presidents who did not get to fill a vacancy. Republican Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and both George H.W. and George W. Bush had a total of 12 vacancies to fill, and their picks included four staunch conservatives who are now on the court: Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr.

On the issues that today define the ideological continuum, these four justices are as conservative as any in American history. Their views are best understood far more by reading the 2008 Republican Party platform than by studying the views of the Constitution's framers.

If the court is split 5 to 4, as it often is in the most high-profile and important cases, these four justices can usually count on being joined by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. Last term, for example, there were 12 cases in which Roberts, Scalia, Thomas and Alito were on one side, with Stevens, Ginsburg, Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor on the other. Kennedy sided with the conservatives in nine of these cases and with the liberals in only three. Similarly, the year before, there were 16 decisions that were split 5 to 4 along ideological lines, and Kennedy sided with the conservatives in 11 and with the liberals in five. During the five years of the Roberts court, Kennedy has been with the conservatives more than twice as often as with the liberals in ideologically split 5-4 decisions.

It is easy to lose sight of how successful conservatives have been in changing constitutional law. Each individual decision only gradually changes the law. Conservatives have not prevailed in every decision of the Roberts court. In some areas, the conservative agenda hasn't succeeded: It has not overruled Roe vs. Wade or declared all affirmative action to be unconstitutional. But it is wrong to generalize from these areas and to miss the overall conservative impact on constitutional law.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

There is no reason to think that this term will be any different as the court considers major issues concerning the separation of church and state, the ability of states to regulate immigration and the rights of criminal defendants. And in the following term or two, the court will be asked to consider major issues such as the constitutionality of the federal health care bill, the ban on marriage equality for gays and lesbians, and Arizona's law requiring state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws. The health care litigation, which is now pending in federal District Courts, will provide the best sense of whether this court will return us to the 1930s, when five conservative justices struck down many federal laws adopted as part of the New Deal.

The court's conservative majority could last another decade no matter who wins the White House in the next presidential elections. Absent unforeseen circumstances, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy will likely be on the court beyond when President Barack Obama leaves office, even if he is a two-term president.

It is a court for conservatives to rejoice over and liberals to bemoan. And it is likely to stay that way for years to come.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

I don't understand what you're angry about here. The plaintiffs never said Wal-Mart had a corporate policy in place, they merely asserted, with no evidence to support it, that this was an issue that every woman in the company faced. The Court was absolutely 100% right to strike this down, and that the ruling was essentially unanimous (the dissent was not one that impacted the basic point) should really tell you something.

[american-geist.livejournal.com]

It's about precedent, not the individual case.

[laviemoderne.livejournal.com]

This is utterly despicable.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Why?

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

The lawsuit should have been too big to fail.

[rimpala.livejournal.com]

I'm convinced that the Supreme Court has been bought out by big business.

I'm surprised they don't just make slavery legal again.