University of South Carolina
Scholar Commons
Faculty Publications
Law School
Winter 2016
Commonality and the Constitution: Applying WalMart to State Court Cases
Joseph Seiner
University of South Carolina - Columbia, [email protected]
Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarcommons.sc.edu/law_facpub
Part of the Law Commons
Recommended Citation
Joseph A. Seiner, Commonality and the Constitution: A Framework for Federal and State Court Class Actions, 91 Ind. L. J. 455 (2016).
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty
Publications by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected].
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In :DO0DUW6WRUHV,QFY'XNHV, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011), the Supreme Court
concluded that the allegations of pay discrimination in a case brought by over one
million female employees lacked sufficient commonality to warrant class
certification under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a). Though the case was
expressly decided under the Federal Rules, some well-known employer groups have
begun to advance the argument that :DO0DUW was decided on constitutional
grounds. These advocates maintain that the Supreme Court’s decision creates a
commonality standard for all class-action plaintiffs—regardless of whether those
litigants bring their claims in federal or state court. This Article explores the possible
constitutional implications of the :DO0DUW decision. This Article explains the
potential due process concerns of commonality in class-action claims and critiques
the argument that :DO0DUW creates a constitutional floor for all systemic litigation.
This Article further fills a void in the scholarship by establishing a framework for
analyzing whether class-action claims satisfy commonality under the Constitution.
This Article develops a normatively fair definition of commonality, identifying five
core guideposts that should be considered when determining whether a class-action
claim complies with due process guarantees. This Article explains the implications
of adopting the proposed guideposts, and situates the suggested framework within
the context of the existing academic literature. :DO0DUW signals a sea change for
how commonality will be analyzed in all class-action cases. This Article helps define
what commonality means under the Constitution, and the guideposts identified here
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