{"id":1007,"date":"2014-10-19T07:05:56","date_gmt":"2014-10-19T11:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1007"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:20:26","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:20:26","slug":"any-traction-for-the-dukes-majoritys-characterization-of-most-managers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2014\/10\/19\/any-traction-for-the-dukes-majoritys-characterization-of-most-managers\/","title":{"rendered":"Any Traction for the Dukes Majority\u2019s Characterization of \u201cMost Managers?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anne King\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

As I wrote previously<\/a>, as courts apply the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes<\/a><\/em>, observers are ever gaining new insight on how the opinion will impact future litigation.\u00a0 Nearly four months after\u00a0Dukes<\/em>\u00a0(decided 6\/20\/11), I thought it would be interesting to take a look at whether a noteworthy passage in the majority opinion is finding any traction in the courts.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the language I have in mind: \u201cTo the contrary, left to their own devices most managers\u00a0<\/strong>in any corporation \u2013 and surely most managers in a corporation that forbids sex discrimination \u2013 would select sex-neutral, performance-based criteria for hiring and promotion that produce no actionable disparity at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unsurprisingly, the majority\u2019s characterization of \u201cmost managers\u201d caught the attention of many.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>The dissent responded with the observation that \u201cManagers, like all humankind, may be prey to biases of which they are unaware.\u201d\u00a0 Suzette Malveaux, in a\u00a0recent article<\/a>, described the statement as indicating \u201cthe majority\u2019s skepticism, if not disbelief, that a majority of Wal-Mart\u2019s managers might act \u2013 even subconsciously \u2013 in a way that disfavors women\u2019s employment prospects.\u201d<\/p>\n

And although the \u201cmost managers\u201d language arises in the context of establishing commonality in a class action, it\u2019s difficult to ignore its possible consequences for individual employment discrimination plaintiffs.<\/p>\n

Four months out, are courts echoing the idea that \u201cmost managers in any corporation . . . would select sex-neutral, performance-based criteria for hiring and promotion?\u201d \u00a0Based on a search of cases applying\u00a0Dukes<\/em>, the answer is: not yet, at least not explicitly \u2013 and not at all in the context of individual employment discrimination litigation.\u00a0 One Northern District of California judge, \u00a0in\u00a0In re Wells Fargo Residential Mortgage Lending Discrimination Litigation<\/a><\/em>, had an interesting take, quoting\u00a0Dukes<\/em>\u00a0but converting \u201cmost managers\u201d to \u201csome managers\u201d:\u00a0 \u201cSome managers \u2018may select sex-neutral, performance-based criteria,\u2019 others \u2018may chose to reward various attributes,\u2019 and \u2018still other managers may be guilty of intentional discrimination.\u201d\u2019\u00a0 (Still, the\u00a0Wells Fargo<\/em>\u00a0court applied\u00a0Dukes<\/em>\u00a0to deny class certification.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anne King\u00a0 As I wrote previously, as courts apply the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in\u00a0Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes, observers are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-gf","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1007"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1007\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1007"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1007"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1007"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}