Wal-Mart V. Dukes/zheng V. Liberty Apparel Co

Case Analysis: Wal-Mart Stores Incorporated v. Dukes et. al/ Zheng v. Liberty Apparel Co.

The following research paper describes the cases, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes et al. and Zheng V. Liberty Apparel Co., respectively. In the case of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes et al., Wal-Mart employee, Betty Dukes, a greeter at the Pittsburg, California store # 1615, along with six female Wal-Mart workers working in California, Illinois, Ohio, Texas and Florida, filed a sex discrimination class-action lawsuit with claims of sex discrimination in promotions and pay against Wal-Mart and its Sam's Club division in the U. S. District Court, Northern District of California in San Francisco (Jamieson, 2012).

Dukes alleged that other employees of her class had experienced the same treatment by local supervising management quite frequently at Wal-Mart and Sam's stores around the country. The total number of plaintiffs in this class-action lawsuit was 1.5 million women. This was the largest class-action law suit in U.S. History. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was sued by Dukes et al. for discrimination on the basis of sex by denying equal pay or promotion which was a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dukes sued Wal-Mart and won, but was later reversed because there was not a commonality and amongst the plaintiffs.

The legal issue here was whether Walmart Stores Inc. operated under a general policy of discrimination of females in promotions and pay. First the problem in lawsuit was determining the class certification governed by Federal Rule Civil Procedure 23. The second problem was proving that the class members had suffered the same injury. Their claim would have to show common contention. To prove every plaintiff's situation was the same was virtually impossible. For instance, there are 3,400 stores with many different jobs with females working at all levels. There is some accounts stating that Betty Dukes worked for Wal-Mart as a greeter and as a cashier for 18 years with a starting pay of $5.00 an hour and ending pay of $16.93 an hour (Jamieson, 2012). Not all of the plaintiffs started out or end their career with the same job or same pay as Dukes or even had all aspects of the same experiences. There were no consistent similarities amongst all. Thus it was concluded that the claim for back pay were improperly certified under federal Civil Procedure 23(b) (2) (Walsh, 2013).

The burden of proof was upon the plaintiffs to demonstrate that Wal-Mart had intentionally or unintentionally discriminated against females in violation of set statutes. The plaintiffs could not successfully satisfy the courts with their statistical and anecdotal evidence falling short of their mark. Although the Courts of Appeals did not agree that all plaintiffs of the class should receive the same remedy, they did feel that a percentage of the claim were valid. A Trial by Formula replaced proceedings taking a sample set of the class members selected of those whom liability for sex discrimination and back pay owing which was be supervised by a master (Walsh, 2013). The percentage of valid claims were applied to the entire remaining class, and the number of presumptive claims were multiplied by the average back pay award to calculate the entire class recovery. The judgment of the Court of Appeals stated that a class could not be certified on the premise that Wal-Mart could would not be entitled to litigate its statutory defenses to individual claims (Walsh, 2013).

Zheng v. Liberty Apparel Co. Inc. left the Circuit courts to decide whether garment manufacturers who hired contractors to stitch and finish pieces of clothing were joint employers under the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and New York law. The plaintiffs, Ling Nan Zheng and twenty five garment workers in New York City were directly employed by six contractors, claim that Liberty was their joint employer because they worked predominantly on the manufacturers' garments, and were frequently directly supervised by the manufacturer's agents. Liberty stated that the contractors who hired and paid the plaintiffs to assemble clothing for numerous manufacturers were their sole employers.

In their complaint, Zheng alleged that both Liberty and the contractors were required by law to pay employees a legally mandated minimum wage. They also alleged that their employer was obligated by law to pay one-and one-half-times times the regular wage when an employee's hours worked exceeded 40 hours per week and did not do so. They also alleged their employee was in violate of New York Lab. Law S 191, S 193, and S 345-a, which requires employers to pay manual workers on a weekly basis, prevents an employer from making unauthorized deductions from employees' wages, and requires employers to comply with law governing payment of wages. The plaintiffs felt that since they informed Liberty agents, who visited their site about not getting paid that it