Broad Discovery Allowed By Magistrate Judge In Plaintiffs' Quest To Certify A Class In The Dukes v. Wal-Mart Litigation

As our blog readers may remember, the fourth amended complaint filed by plaintiffs in Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. 3:01-CV-02252 (N.D. Cal.), alleges class-based gender discrimination claims very similar to those originally alleged (before plaintiffs suffered their defeat before the U.S. Supreme Court in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011)), but with two important changes: (i) the plaintiffs narrowed the scope of the class claims to current and former female employees who worked in Wal-Mart regions centered in California only; and (ii) the plaintiffs attempted to establish commonality by alleging that the source of bias was a “discrete group of California District and Regional Managers who provided common direction, oversight, and approval of the challenged discriminatory pay and promotion practices.”   

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