The Supreme Court will decide if Wal-Mart can be sued by a class of 500,000 female employees claiming discrimination.

SCOTUSblog reports on Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes:

The first question will be whether, under Federal court Rule 23, a lawsuit may seek a money verdict — in this case, a claim for back pay — when the class was created under a provision that limits remedies to corrective court orders, not money.   Besides agreeing to hear that, the Court told the parties to file briefs and prepare to argue on a second question — whether the class was a proper one, under Rule 23, when it was cleared to go forward under Rule 23(b)(2)....

Wal-Mart’s petition had raised a second question that embraced the broader argument that no class should have been approved at all, since the claims made by the women employees were so disparate and so diffuse that they really had nothing in common, and that, as a result, Wal-Mart would not have been able to mount a defense to such claims....

The class approved in this case is the largest ever certified in a job bias context, but is also among the largest of any class certified in any case in federal courts....

The sex discrimination class-action case against Wal-Mart was actually started more than nine years ago as a race bias case involving a single company employee — Betty Dukes, a black woman who is a “greeter” at the company’s store in Pittsburg, Calif.  It later became a class-action lawsuit with six original plaintiffs, including Dukes, contending that the company has engaged in pay and promotion discrimination against women throughout the chain.

MORE: Adam Liptak and Steven Greenhouse have this:

Wal-Mart, which says its policies expressly bar discrimination and promote diversity, said the plaintiffs, who worked in 3,400 stores in 170 job classifications, cannot possibly have enough in common to make class-action treatment appropriate. “We are pleased that the Supreme Court has granted review in this important case,” Wal-Mart said in a brief statement. “The current confusion in class-action law is harmful for everyone — employers, employees, businesses of all types and sizes and the civil justice system. These are exceedingly important issues that reach far beyond this particular case.”...

Brad Seligman, the main lawyer for the plaintiffs, said Monday that plaintiffs welcomed the court’s review of the limited issue and were confident that the justices would rule in their favor. “Wal-Mart has thrown up an extraordinarily broad number of issues, many of which, if the court seriously entertained, could very severely undermine many civil rights class actions,” Mr. Seligman said.

The decision in the 9th Circuit was written by Judge Michael Daly Hawkins — who, incidentally, is one of the judges in the Prop 8 case. (I spent what seems like the entire day listening to the oral argument in that case.)

[W]riting for the majority, [Hawkins] said the company’s policies and treatment of women were similar enough that a single lawsuit was both efficient and appropriate....

[Dissenting, Chief Judge Alex Kozinski wrote:] “Maybe there’d be no difference between 500 employees and 500,000 employees if they all had similar jobs, worked at the same half-billion square foot store and were supervised by the same managers”....

“They have little in common but their sex and this lawsuit,” Judge Kozinski concluded.