Fuck the Supreme Court!

First they gave us Citizens United.

Now they block a discrimination suit against Walmart.

It's official. We're no longer the United States of America. It's now the United Corporations of America. We've known this for awhile, the SCOTUS just made it official.

Fuck the Supreme Court.

the decision says.

It's disappointing, to be sure, but they weren't ruling on the merits of the case, only the issue of class action status.

and a major loss for employees/consumers?

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Of this movie I saw about lawyers in England. They would be asked "What are you guys learning to be lawyers for?" Then they'd all chant "To protect the rich from everyone else." At the time it was just kind of a funny little thing, but each time I hear about court decisions these days, I realize it's more true than false.

Clearly Con-servative judges don't give a crap about the constitution and cherry-pick it just like con-servative politicians do.

If I didn't declare my wife's income for 13 years on my tax forms, where the hell would I be now?

I know I wouldn't be pulling a six-digit salary with all the perks and health insurance...

claim.

No one is saying that the Thomases failed to declare her income to the IRS. It wasn't disclosed on a financial disclosure form required under the Ethics in Government Act.

He can report his wife's income on his federal tax forms because he "could understand those instructions"* but not on the judicial AO 10 Financial Disclosure Reports because he "could not understand those instructions."

Just the kind of mind we need on the SCOTUS...

*We're assuming he reported his wife's income on this federal taxes...

case by case basis

This does NOT invalidate those women who have a case, and they can and should bring suit

You say those women "can and should bring suit," but what if they can't afford representation? Class action suits allow people to sue as a group, which makes it much more affordable to do so.

all the court was saying is that the class must have the same basis for a lawsuit. They found that there were too many differences in the complaints between the members of this class.

This shows that the lawyers bringing a class action need to show that the people they are representing all have similar complaints.

vs. the complaints? :shrug: That said, I've not read the ruling.

Most of such cases are done on contingency. This makes any one pay-off for a lawyer much less profitable and therefore much riskier. In this way it reduces the number of cases *or* makes it so that the women have to actually hire the lawyer (reducing his pay-off in case of a win).

In this case, SCOTUS unanimously said that the lower courts didn't satisfy the requirements for certifying the class as a class. There was a 6-3 dissent when it came to whether or not another requirement had been met--that all the cases have a common question of law so that they can really be satisfied by a single finding. (I think I skimmed that right.)

I grew up around a class-action suit against a steel company. (Literally: My mother helped get the lawyer involved, and continued, for 5-6 years of my life, to be a steelworker first, a legal aide 2nd, and a NOW organizer 3rd. "Mother" ranked somewhere around 5th or 6th.) There was a clear question that could readily be resolved with a clear remedy, one that was clearly part of a pattern of corporate policy and behavior as tracked in documents and in speech; there was a readily ascertainable class of people consistently affected. No random sampling, no reliance on anecdotal evidence with nothing except marginally valid inferencing to tie them together. In fact, the class was so clearly defined that the company offered extra-judicial settlements to the women involved and my mother would have to spend hours on the phone, prowling around the steelmill, or visiting the women at home to convince them *not* to sign the check offered or to accept compensation.

A compromise might require some work--and that would be for the women at a given Walmart or Walmart region to bring individual class-action suits. At that point instead of relying on anecdotes to tie disparate behaviors by 50 men in 50 states together in order to say something about corporate policy they could tie the behavior of 30 or 40 managers that are clearly governed by a single regional (or lower) manager. The behaviors involved might be more consistent, more closely related; the management might have a more consistent policy. The pay-off would be big enough to attract a lawyer or 20 on contingency.

a discrimination suit.

don't want...or The American People want, you now know they are not talking about us, they are talking about Walmart, Target, BP, Chevron, Bank of America etc...
The Conservatives want a lower-class working class. Period. You can't bargain with them, you can't negotiate with them. This is their goal and they will continue to hammer at it until they win, or are voted out of office and other judges are appointed who do not possess vital self-interest in the outcomes of these decisions.

The battle is fought at the class certification stage. If the corp wins there it's over.

Bake

So far we've gotten two good justices. We need to make sure the R's don't get to name any more justices for a very long time.

Julie

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1331675

From 10:26 am

Thomas would just film the act and then watch it with his hand dipped in vaseline.

Where did you get that it was unanimous?

reading the decision might actually help you understand it.

The Ginsburg's dissenting opinion was agreed to by Justices Sotomayer, Kagan and Breyer.

Perhaps you could enlighten us as to what the hell you're talking about?

dude:



http://www.cnn.com/primary/_cA2QkF-ioblRRdOkC



In other words, all 9 justices agreed that the class, as constituted, should not proceed to trial. The 5-4 vote related to the remedy. Of course, you could have found this out by simply reading the decision.

And I swear, there are some people around here who are absolutely addicted to outrage.

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Chicken little runs a hell of a trade here.

From the dissenting opinion:

"The Court errs in importing a “dissimilarities” notion suited to Rule 23(b)(3) into the Rule 23(a) commonality inquiry. I therefore cannot join Part II of the Court’s opinion."

Now, correct me if I'm wrong (not just perceived to be wrong), does the dissension of 4 Justices represent a unanimous decision?

Read what you wrote.

"I therefore cannot join Part II of the Court's decision".

What do you think that means? Hint: It was a two part decision. A UNANIMOUS (9-0) court agreed that that the case should not proceed to trial in its current form (Part I); where the Court split (5-4) was on the remedy (Part II).

I honestly cannot believe I need to explain to you why a two part ruling is arrived at by two separate votes.

then why dissent?

Do the dissenting justices believe that the case should have proceeded or not?

Here's a mental exercise for you: try to find a dissenting opinion to Part I of the ruling.

Bonus question: why do you think the excerpt you provided from the dissenting opinion specifically refers to Part II of the decision?

chances are you will never really understand that there were two parts to the it and that ALL NINE JUSTICES agreed that the case could not go forward in its present configuration.

But apparently it was never about the facts of the decision for you. You just want to be pissed.

And you are, so good work!!

based on your posts, assume that I've read more of the decision than you have.

All 9 of the Justices certainly DID NOT agree that "the case could not go forward in its present configuration".

In fact, the dissenting Justices basically said that the majority opinion was wrong because the Court could not "see the forest because of all the trees" and said that the case did appear to have merit and that it should proceed.

This has been explained to you multiple times:



http://www.scotusblog.com/2011/06/opinion-analysis-wal-marts-two-messages/

Please tell me I don't have to explain this to you again.

based on your posts, assume that I've read more of the decision than you have.

All 9 of the Justices certainly DID NOT agree that "the case could not go forward in its present configuration".

In fact, the dissenting Justices basically said that the majority opinion was wrong because the Court could not "see the forest because of all the trees" and said that the case did appear to have merit and that it should proceed.

Now, I acknowledge that I am not a legal expert but I can read English well enough to muck through a court decision laden with legalese.

no, you can't, dude.

The law is not your strong suit.

Sorry if the rest of us humans don't approach your obviously vastly superior intellect.

Are you just "slumming it" with us mere mortals in order to demonstrate your unimpeachable knowledge with a few remarks that are full of pretentious posturing but severely lacking any measurable merit?

Dude...I have repeatedly linked you to excerpts of articles and analysis showing, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the decision had two parts, the 1st of which was decided UNANIMOUSLY. Your inability to grasp this is no one's problem but your own.

The problem, in this instance, is that you WON'T.

The 5-4 part was in that the majority said that there were too many plaintiffs in different kinds of jobs to constitute a sufficiently unified class of plaintiffs in a single suit.

The dissent was unhappy about HOW the Majority ruled on the issue of certifying the class, NOT whether the case should proceed. In a nutshell, the Majority ruled the class was to broad to work as a Class Action, the dissent ruled that may be correct, but for purposes of certifying the class action, all that was needed the the class existed. Sometime during the Discovery phase of the Litigation it may be found that the group would lose and the case should be dismissed, but NOT at the certification of the Class.

The opinion is reference in an earlier thread on this subject:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1331675

Read Part I then provide the dissenting opinion (hint: there isn't one because a unanimous Court agreed that the case should not proceed to trial as currently constituted).

For the life of me, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to reason with non-legal folks about fine points of the law.

"there is nothing more frustrating than trying to reason with non-legal folks about fine points of the law..."


Then don't. :shrug: Or happy martyrdom...

people will educate themselves.

The issue, in my reading of the Dissent, is that part 1, which is more the status of the case then any legal rationale, the dissent had not problems with. The dispute is should this case proceed to the Discovery Phase of litigation or just end at the certification of the class. The Majority says simply that unless there is more "cohesion" as to membership of the class it should NOT be certified as a Class, the dissent said there is enough to do so, further evidence of who would fit into the class would come out in the Discovery Phase of the Litigation (Which can include the demand for internal records of Walmart which could support what the class members are saying).

In this type of case, discovery is the key, in discovery you can interview the management of the Defendant, you can demand copies of relevant records etc. In this type of case, that is where this case will prevail or fail. That is acknowledged by the Dissent, no one has a problem with that. The majority says we do NOT even get there, each class member has the right to do that discovery in their individual case, so there is no need for class certification just to get those records. Each class member, in their own individual case, in whatever district their bring the action, will have to obtain those records on their own, at their own expense. This by itself will cut out most such claims, why spend $10,000 to obtain such records (and having to agree NOT to reveal those records to anyone else, including other former class members suing in their own name) to may be win the difference between what they could have earned and what they did earned (Which is the main limitation is such cases). The Dissent accept this reality, the majority says it is unimportant. That is the heart of the dispute and why the dissent agreed to Part 1 of the Majority decision and only dissented as to Part 2.

Toddwv.

;)

decide on these cases. :(