Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-04-16720/USCOURTS-ca9-04-16720-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BETTY DUKES; PATRICIA SURGESON; 

EDITH ARANA; KAREN WILLIAMSON;

DEBORAH GUNTER; CHRISTINE

KWAPNOSKI; CLEO PAGE, on behalf Nos. 04-16688 of themselves and all others 04-16720 similarly situated,

Plaintiffs-Appellees/Cross-  D.C. No.

Appellants, CV-01-02252-MJJ

v. OPINION

WAL-MART STORES, INC.,

Defendant-Appellant/CrossAppellee. 

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of California

Martin J. Jenkins, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

March 24, 2009—San Francisco, California

Filed April 26, 2010

Before: Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge, Stephen Reinhardt,

Pamela Ann Rymer, Michael Daly Hawkins,

Barry G. Silverman, Susan P. Graber, Raymond C. Fisher,

Richard A. Paez, Marsha S. Berzon, Carlos T. Bea and

Sandra S. Ikuta, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Hawkins;

Concurrence by Judge Graber;

Dissent by Judge Ikuta;

Dissent by Chief Judge Kozinski

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COUNSEL

Theodore J. Boutrous, Jr., Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Los

Angeles, California, for the defendant/appellant/crossappellee.

Brad Seligman, The Impact Fund, Berkeley, California, for

the plaintiffs/appellees/cross-appellants.

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Joel E. Krischer, Latham & Watkins, LLP, Los Angeles, California, on behalf of amicus curiae Employers Group.

Rae T. Vann, Norris, Tysse, Lampley & Lakis, LLP, Washington, D.C., on behalf of amicus curiae Equal Employment

Advisory Council.

John H. Beisner, O’Melveny & Myers, LLP, Washington,

D.C., on behalf of amicus curiae Chamber of Commerce of

the United States.

Daniel J. Popeo, Washington Legal Foundation, Washington,

D.C., on behalf of amicus curiae Washington Legal Foundation.

Laura C. Fentonmiller, Constantine Cannon LLP, Washington, D.C., on behalf of amicus curiae The Retail Industry

Leaders Association.

Pamela Coukos, Mehri & Skalet, Washington, D.C., on behalf

of amici curiae The National Employment Lawyers Association, The National Partnership for Women & Families, and

The National Women’s Law Center.

Daniel B. Kohrman, AARP Foundation Litigation, Washington, D.C., on behalf of amicus curiae AARP.

Bill Lann Lee, Lewis, Feinberg, Lee, Renaker & Jackson,

P.C., Oakland, California, on behalf of amici curiae Consumers Union, National Consumer Law Center, Center for Constitutional Rights, and Communities for a Better Environment.

Audrey J. Wiggins, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights

Under Law, Washington, D.C., on behalf of amici curiae

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Asian

American Justice Center, Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, Legal Aid Society-Employment

Law Center, Mexican American Legal Defense & Educational

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Fund, NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.,

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,

Public Advocates, Inc. & Women Employed.

David R. Bruce, Santa Rose, California, on behalf of amicus

curiae California Employment Law Council.

James M. Beck, Dechert LLP, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on

behalf of amicus curiae Product Liability Advisory Council,

Inc.

Mark Etheredge Burton, Hersh & Hersh, San Francisco, California, on behalf of amicus curiae U.S. Women’s Chamber of

Commerce.

Joe R. Whatley, Whatley, Drake & Kallas, New York, New

York, on behalf of amicus curiae Public Justice, P.C.

Barbara L. Sloan, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Office of the General Counsel, Washington, D.C., on

behalf of amicus curiae Equal Employment Opportunity

Commission.

OPINION

HAWKINS, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiffs allege that Wal-Mart, Inc., discriminates against

women in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of

1964. After detailed briefing and hearing, the district court

certified a class encompassing all women employed by WalMart at any time after December 26, 1998, and encompassing

all Plaintiffs’ claims for injunctive relief, declaratory relief,

and back pay, while creating a separate opt-out class encompassing the same employees for punitive damages. We affirm1

1We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(e). 

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the district court’s certification of a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2) class of current employees with respect to

their claims for injunctive relief, declaratory relief, and back

pay. With respect to the claims for punitive damages, we

remand so that the district court may consider whether to certify the class under Rule 23(b)(2) or (b)(3). We also remand

with respect to the claims of putative class members who no

longer worked for Wal-Mart when the complaint was filed so

that the district court may consider whether to certify an additional class or classes under Rule 23(b)(3). 

BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs’ Third Amended Complaint,2 brought on behalf

of certain named plaintiffs and those similarly situated, asserts

claims against Wal-Mart for sex discrimination under Title

VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Plaintiffs allege that women

employed in Wal-Mart stores: (1) are paid less than men in

comparable positions, despite having higher performance ratings and greater seniority; and (2) receive fewer—and wait

longer for—promotions to in-store management positions

than men. Plaintiffs contend that Wal-Mart’s strong, centralized structure fosters or facilitates gender stereotyping and

discrimination, that the policies and practices underlying this

discriminatory treatment are consistent throughout Wal-Mart

stores, and that this discrimination is common to all women

who work or have worked in Wal-Mart stores. 

Plaintiffs sought to certify a nationwide class of women

who have been subjected to these allegedly discriminatory

pay and promotion policies. The proposed class consists of

women employed in a range of Wal-Mart positions, from

part-time entry-level hourly employees to salaried managers.

The class seeks injunctive and declaratory relief, back pay,

and punitive damages, but not traditional “compensatory”

2The action was originally filed on June, 21, 2004. 

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damages. Plaintiffs proposed that the district court certify the

following class pursuant to Rule 23:

All women employed at any Wal-Mart domestic

retail store at any time since December 26, 1998 who

have been or may be subjected to Wal-Mart’s challenged pay and management track promotions policies and practices.

Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 222 F.R.D. 137, 141-42 (N.D.

Cal. 2004). 

After the parties had conducted extensive discovery and

filed copious briefs, the district court heard oral argument. At

the hearing, Wal-Mart emphasized the “historic” nature of

Plaintiffs’ motion, including the size of the putative class,

involving women employees at Wal-Mart’s 3,400 stores in 41

regions. The court acknowledged Wal-Mart’s concerns but

noted that, while the class size was large, the issues were not

unusual.3

3Ten times the dissent points out the large class size, referring to the

“1.5 million” women alleging discrimination as a reason to reject certification. However, at oral argument, counsel for Wal-Mart conceded that if

past employees are excluded the class to be certified would be less than

1.5 million, perhaps two-thirds less than the figure the dissent cites. Further, the dissent emphasizes that this is the largest class that we have ever

certified “based on a small number of incidents.” Dissent at 6249 n.11 (all

references in this Opinion to the dissent refer to Judge Ikuta’s dissent). As

an initial matter, we do not find 120 claims of illegal sex discrimination

a small number. Nevertheless, given that the class is suing by far the largest employer in the United States, we are unsurprised that Plaintiffs are

seeking to represent such a large class. Of course, this should not change

the analysis the Supreme Court required in General Telephone Co. of the

Southwest v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 157-59 (1982), nor should it necessitate that we take an even harder look at the merits, essentially conducting

a trial, as the dissent proposes. 

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DISTRICT COURT PROCEEDINGS

The district court issued an eighty-four-page order granting

in part and denying in part Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. See id. at 187-88. With respect to Plaintiffs’ claims for

equal pay, the district court granted Plaintiffs’ certification

motion as to issues of alleged discrimination and all forms of

requested relief. With respect to Plaintiffs’ promotion claim,

the court’s holding was mixed. The court certified the proposed class with respect to issues of alleged discrimination

(including liability for punitive damages, as well as injunctive

and declaratory relief); however, the court rejected the proposed class with respect to the request for back pay, determining that data relating to the challenged promotions were not

available for all class members. The court also exercised its

discretion to provide for notice and an opportunity for

employees to opt-out of the punitive damages portion of the

class.

THE APPEAL

Pursuant to Rule 23(f), Wal-Mart appealed, contending that

the district court erred by: (1) concluding that the class met

Rule 23(a)’s commonality and typicality requirements; (2)

eliminating Wal-Mart’s ability to respond to individual Plaintiff’s claims; and (3) failing to recognize that Plaintiffs’

claims for monetary relief predominated over their claims for

injunctive or declaratory relief. Plaintiffs cross-appealed from

the district court’s limitation of back pay relief for many of

Plaintiffs’ promotion claims. 

DISCUSSION

I. STANDARD AND SCOPE OF REVIEW

A district court’s decision regarding class certification is

not only reviewed for abuse of discretion, Staton v. Boeing

Co., 327 F.3d 938, 953 (9th Cir. 2003), but also subject to

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“very limited” review, to be reversed “only upon a strong

showing that the district court’s decision was a clear abuse of

discretion,” Armstrong v. Davis, 275 F.3d 849, 867 (9th Cir.

2001) (internal quotation marks omitted). See also Millowitz

v. Citigroup Global Mkts., Inc. (In re Salomon Analyst

Metromedia Litig.), 544 F.3d 474, 480 (2d Cir. 2008) (“When

reviewing a grant of class certification, we accord the district

court noticeably more deference than when we review a

denial of class certification.”); Gonzales v. Free Speech Coal.,

408 F.3d 613, 618 (9th Cir. 2005) (“Abuse of discretion is a

highly deferential standard, under which the appellate court

cannot substitute its view of what constitutes substantial justification for that of the district court; rather, the review is limited to assuring that the district court’s determination has a

basis in reason.” (internal quotation marks omitted)); Blyden

v. Mancusi, 186 F.3d 252, 269 (2d Cir. 1999) (“A district

court’s decision to certify a class is reviewed for abuse of discretion, and ‘[a] reviewing court must exercise even greater

deference when the district court has certified a class than

when it has declined to do so.’ ” (quoting Marisol A. v. Giuliani, 126 F.3d 372, 375 (2d Cir. 1997) (per curiam))); Doninger v. Pac. Nw. Bell, Inc., 564 F.2d 1304, 1309 (9th Cir.

1977) (stating that “the judgment of the trial court should be

given the greatest respect and the broadest discretion” (internal quotation marks omitted)). 

A court abuses its discretion if its decision is premised on

legal error. Hawkins v. Comparet-Cassani, 251 F.3d 1230,

1237 (9th Cir. 2001). Moreover, the district court’s factual

findings as to the applicability of Rule 23 criteria are entitled

to the traditional deference given such determinations. See

Local Joint Executive Bd. of Culinary/Bartender Trust Fund

v. Las Vegas Sands, Inc., 244 F.3d 1152, 1161 (9th Cir.

2001). 

Rule 23 “provides district courts with broad discretion to

determine whether a class should be certified, and to revisit

that certification throughout the legal proceedings before the

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court.” Armstrong, 275 F.3d at 871 n.28. If evidence not

available at the time of certification disproves Plaintiffs’ contentions that common issues predominate, the district court

has the authority to modify or even decertify the class, Gen.

Tel. Co. of Sw. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 160 (1982) (“Even

after a certification order is entered, the judge remains free to

modify it in the light of subsequent developments in the litigation.”), or use a variety of management devices to address the

individualized issues that have arisen, see 2 Alba Conte &

Herbert B. Newberg, Newberg on Class Actions § 4.26 (4th

ed. 2002).4

Our review is limited to whether the district court correctly

selected and applied Rule 23 criteria. Bogus v. Am. Speech &

Hearing Ass’n, 582 F.2d 277, 289 (3d Cir. 1978); see also

Waste Mgmt. Holdings, Inc. v. Mowbray, 208 F.3d 288, 295

(1st Cir. 2000) (“An abuse occurs when a court, in making a

discretionary ruling, relies upon an improper factor, omits

consideration of a factor entitled to substantial weight, or

mulls the correct mix of factors but makes a clear error of

judgment in assaying them.”). Thus, if Plaintiffs demonstrate

that they meet Rule 23’s requirements, they should be allowed

to pursue their action as a class. 

II. STANDARDS FOR CLASS CERTIFICATION UNDER RULE 23

[1] A district court may certify a class only if: 

(1) the class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable;

4As the district court acknowledged, Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 143, although

federal courts are no longer permitted to engage in “conditional certification,” see Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 advisory committee’s note to 2003 amends.,

district courts retain the authority to amend or decertify a class if, based

on information not available or circumstances not anticipated when the

class was certified, the court finds that either is warranted. 

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(2) there are questions of law or fact common to the

class; (3) the claims or defenses of the representative

parties are typical of the claims or defenses of the

class; and (4) the representative parties will fairly

and adequately protect the interests of the class. 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a). 

[2] The district court must also find that at least one of the

following three conditions is satisfied: (1) the prosecution of

separate actions would create a risk of: (a) inconsistent or

varying adjudications, or (b) individual adjudications dispositive of the interests of other members not a party to those

adjudications; (2) the party opposing the class has acted or

refused to act on grounds generally applicable to the class; or

(3) questions of law or fact common to the members of the

class predominate over any questions affecting only individual members, and a class action is superior to other available

methods for the fair and efficient adjudication of the controversy. See id. 23(b). 

The party seeking certification bears the burden of showing

that each of the four requirements of Rule 23(a) and at least

one requirement of Rule 23(b) have been met. Zinser v. Accufix Research Inst., Inc., 253 F.3d 1180, 1186 (9th Cir.),

amended by 273 F.3d 1266 (9th Cir. 2001). 

[3] The parties vigorously contest the standards governing

the district court in finding the Rule 23 requirements satisfied.

For a number of reasons, we must clarify this standard. First,

the parties’ briefs demonstrate the degree of debate over the

standard in this circuit. Second, a number of recent cases in

other circuits have endeavored to clarify the standard, and we

find it prudent to follow suit given evidence of confusion.

Third, it is only very recently that any case in this circuit has

interpreted language under the standard that drifts away from

our clear case law, and we write to clarify our precedent.

Fourth, we are not aware of a circuit that has detailed the

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issue in the Title VII context, and the typical situation presented in such a case implicates significant differences in the

doctrine that require explanation to reach a resolution here

and in future Title VII class action certification decisions.

A. Supreme Court Authority

The Supreme Court has provided clear, if sometimes misunderstood, guidance on the issue of what standards a district

court applies when deciding whether to certify a class. 

The leading case describing these standards is Falcon,

where the plaintiff successfully certified a class of MexicanAmericans claiming racial discrimination. After a full trial on

the merits, however, the district court’s findings distinguishing the named representative’s claims from those of the class

called the propriety of continued class certification into question.5

 On appeal, the Supreme Court held that because of the

district court’s findings at trial, Falcon’s “complaint provided

an insufficient basis for concluding that the adjudication of

his claim of discrimination in promotion would require the

decision of any common question concerning the failure of

[General Telephone] to hire more Mexican-Americans.” Id. at

158.

[4] The Court described the implications of its holding,

noting that “[s]ometimes the issues are plain enough from the

pleadings to determine whether the interests of the absent parties are fairly encompassed within the named plaintiff’s claim,

5After a trial, the district court in Falcon made converse findings

regarding Falcon, who was the named plaintiff, and the class he sought to

represent. The district court found that the defendant, General Telephone

Company of the Southwest, had not discriminated against Falcon when it

hired him, but had discriminated against him when it failed to promote

him. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 152. But the district court also found the defendant had not discriminated against Mexican-Americans generally in promotion decisions, but had discriminated against them in hiring. Id. This

disconnect created a potential typicality problem under Rule 23(a)(3). 

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and sometimes it may be necessary for the court to probe

behind the pleadings before coming to rest on the certification

question.” Id. at 160. In either case, the Court held, “a Title

VII class action, like any other class action, may only be certified if the trial court is satisfied, after a rigorous analysis, that

the prerequisites of Rule 23(a) have been satisfied.” Id. at

161. In conducting this rigorous analysis, the Court explained

that “the class determination generally involves considerations that are enmeshed in the factual and legal issues comprising the plaintiff’s cause of action.” Id. at 160 (internal

quotation marks omitted). 

Illustrating further, the Court approvingly cited Judge Godbold’s concurring opinion in the Fifth Circuit case that had

announced the “across-the-board” rule the Court was reviewing in Falcon. Judge Godbold’s concurrence addressed the

role of the district court in understanding the likely course of

the litigation, and the Supreme Court praised his focus on “the

need for more precise pleadings.” Id. at 160 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court approved of his statement that

“ ‘without reasonable specificity the court cannot define the

class, cannot determine whether the representation is adequate, and the employer does not know how to defend.’ ” Id.

at 161 (quoting Johnson v. Ga. Highway Express, Inc., 417

F.2d 1122, 1126 (5th Cir. 1969) (Godbold, J., specially concurring). 

[5] Falcon thus provides relatively straightforward guidance. When considering class certification under Rule 23, district courts are not only at liberty to, but must, perform a

rigorous analysis to ensure that the prerequisites of Rule 23(a)

have been satisfied. See id. at 160-61. It does not mean that

a district court must conduct a full-blown trial on the merits

prior to certification. A district court’s analysis will often,

though not always, require looking behind the pleadings, even

to issues overlapping with the merits of the underlying claims.

See id. As we describe in more detail below, every circuit to

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sions, has reached essentially the same conclusion: Falcon’s

central command requires district courts to ensure that Rule

23 requirements are actually met, not simply presumed from

the pleadings. 

We also agree with the Second Circuit’s recent decision in

Miles v. Merrill Lynch & Co. (In re Initial Pub. Offerings

Securities Litigation) (“IPO”), which explained that, to the

extent lower courts have evidenced confusion regarding the

Rule 23 standard after Falcon, this confusion has existed

because those courts have misread a Supreme Court statement

made eight years before the Court handed down Falcon. See

471 F.3d 24, 33-34 (2d Cir. 2006). Specifically, courts have

misunderstood Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, in which the

Supreme Court stated, “We find nothing in either the language or history of Rule 23 that gives a court any authority

to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the merits of a suit in

order to determine whether it may be maintained as a class

action.” 417 U.S. 156, 177 (1974). “This statement has led

some courts to think that in determining whether any Rule 23

requirement is met, a judge may not consider any aspect of

the merits . . . .” IPO, 471 F.3d at 33. It has “led other courts

to think that a judge may not do so at least with respect to a

prerequisite of Rule 23 that overlaps with an aspect of the

merits of the case.” Id.

As the IPO court recognized, the distinguishing features of

Falcon and Eisen are the purposes for which the certifying

court is using the underlying facts — whether to address a

merits issue unnecessarily or to determine whether, for example, the plaintiffs have demonstrated questions of law or fact

common to their proposed class. See IPO, 471 F.3d at 32-35.

An easy way to understand this distinction is to analogize to

a familiar dispute over the admissibility of alleged hearsay

evidence. Offered for the truth of the matter asserted, an outof-court statement by someone not testifying is, of course,

inadmissible hearsay. However, that same evidence used to

impeach a witness may be properly admitted. So, too, with

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inquiries into facts overlapping with merits issues in the Rule

23 context. It is whether courts are using the facts to probe the

plaintiffs’ claims of compliance with Rule 23, or to hear

either parties’ claims directed to stand-alone merits issues,

that renders a court’s use of the facts proper or improper.

Courts have thus strayed from Falcon when they have myopically invoked Eisen to avoid considering facts properly relevant to the Rule 23 determination because the facts happen to

be relevant to the later merits inquiry as well.

B. Case Law in Other Circuits

Like our decision today, and in part because of courts’ misunderstanding of Eisen, many of our sister circuits have

recently been called upon to clarify the standard that a district

court applies when deciding whether to certify a class under

Rule 23. 

Though IPO is the most notable of these decisions, other

courts often trace the explanatory effort back to the Seventh

Circuit’s decision in Szabo v. Bridgeport Machines, Inc., 249

F.3d 672 (7th Cir. 2001). In Szabo, the court rejected a nationwide products liability class because the class was generally

unsuitable for class-wide resolution because of choice of law

problems on the state breach-of-warranty and fraud claims. Id.

at 674. The Seventh Circuit also found that the district court

below had “certified the class without resolving factual and

legal disputes that strongly influence the wisdom of class

treatment” because the district court had stated that the plaintiffs’ “allegations in the complaint are accepted as true for

purposes of the class motion.” Id. at 675. Analogizing to the

preliminary jurisdictional inquiries that district courts routinely make under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1)

and 12(b)(2), the court explained that, “[b]efore deciding

whether to allow a case to proceed as a class action, therefore,

a judge should make whatever factual and legal inquiries are

necessary under Rule 23.” Id. at 676. 

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The Second Circuit’s decision in IPO agreed with Szabo,

providing what is now the leading case on the extent to which

a district court must resolve Rule 23 issues that overlap with

the merits of the case. IPO held that factual disputes concerning each of the Rule 23 factors must be analyzed and

resolved. 471 F.3d at 41. This is a similar holding to our previous explanation—discussed in more detail below—that a

district court must make “determinations” that the prerequisites of Rule 23(a) have been satisfied before it certifies a

class, “which may require review of the same facts and the

same law presented by review of the merits.” Falcon, 457

U.S. at 161; Blackie v. Barrack, 524 F.2d 891, 897 (9th Cir.

1975). IPO explained that “the obligation to make such determinations is not lessened by overlap between a Rule 23

requirement and a merits issue.” 471 F.3d at 41. IPO

expressly rejected the Second Circuit’s approach in Caridad

v. Metro-North Commuter Railroad, 191 F.3d 283, 291-93

(2d Cir. 1999), and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Visa U.S.A. Inc.

(In re Visa Check/ MasterMoney Antitrust Litigation) (“Visa

Check”), 280 F.3d 124, 135 (2d Cir. 2001), which had permitted class certification based on “some showing” that the Rule

23 factors were met, obviating the need to assess conflicting

expert testimony pertinent to the Rule 23 inquiries. IPO, 471

F.3d at 40. 

Since IPO, a number of other circuits have detailed the

issue. The First Circuit has reviewed these appellate cases,

noting that “[o]ur sister circuits agree that when class criteria

and merits overlap, the district court must conduct a searching

inquiry regarding the Rule 23 criteria, but how they articulate

the necessary degree of inquiry ranges along a spectrum

which suggests substantial differences.” Brown v. Am. Honda

(In re New Motor Vehicles Canadian Export Antitrust Litig.),

522 F.3d 6, 24 (1st Cir. 2008) (“New Motor Vehicles”). 

Though, of course, different circuits have used different

words in articulating the review necessary, we think New

Motor Vehicles overstates the degree of difference among the

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circuits. The core holding across circuits that have considered

the issue is essentially unanimous: district courts must satisfy

themselves that the Rule 23 requirements have been met

before certifying a class, which will sometimes, though not

always, require an inquiry into and preliminary resolution of

disputed factual issues, even if those same factual issues are

also, independently, relevant to the ultimate merits of the

case. See, e.g., 1 Joseph M. McLaughlin, McLaughlin on

Class Actions § 3:12 (6th ed. 2009) (“Consensus is rapidly

emerging among the United States Courts of Appeal. The

First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth, Tenth

and Eleventh Circuits have expressly adopted certification

standards that require rigorous factual review and preliminary

factual and legal determinations with respect to the requirements of Rule 23 even if those determinations overlap with

the merits.”). 

A closer discussion of the cases the First Circuit has cited

demonstrates the truly narrow range in which this “spectrum”

actually exists. Requiring the district court to “make specific

findings that each Rule 23 criterion is met” represents, the

First Circuit has claimed, “around the more rigorous end of

[the] spectrum,” and has been embraced by the Second,

Fourth, Fifth, Seventh—and we would add Ninth—Circuits.

New Motor Vehicles, 522 F.3d at 24 (citing IPO, 471 F.3d at

33, 41; Unger v. Amedisys Inc., 401 F.3d 316, 321-22 (5th

Cir. 2005) (requiring courts to find facts favoring class certification through the use of “rigorous, though preliminary, standards of proof”); Gariety v. Grant Thornton, LLP, 368 F.3d

356, 366 (4th Cir. 2004) (requiring that “the factors spelled

out in Rule 23 . . . be addressed through findings”); Szabo,

249 F.3d at 675-76)); see Blackie, 524 F.2d at 897. 

On the other end of this “spectrum,” according to the New

Motor Vehicles court, are cases in “the Third and Eighth Circuits [which] sometimes require an inquiry into and preliminary resolution of disputes, but they do not require findings

and do not hold that such inquiry will always be necessary.”

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New Motor Vehicles, 522 F.3d at 24 (citing Blades v. Monsanto Co., 400 F.3d 562, 566-67 (8th Cir. 2005)); Newton v.

Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Inc., 259 F.3d 154,

166 (3d Cir. 2001)). 

In our review of these cases, we find this “spectrum” of

certification standards narrower and more internally consistent than does the First Circuit. To begin with, we respectfully

disagree with New Motor Vehicles’s characterization of the

Third Circuit’s approach. The case New Motor Vehicles cited,

Newton, 259 F.3d at 174-77, only discussed a “presumption”

of conformity with Rule 23 in the context of the fraud-on-themarket presumption in a securities class action. 

The Third Circuit has since provided clarification. It has

noted that Newton does not hold that a district court can presume Rule 23 requirements met from contested pleadings outside the fraud-on-the-market context. Vallies v. Sky Bank, No.

08-4160, 2009 WL 5154473, at *7 (3d Cir. Dec. 31, 2009).

It has also demonstrated its conformity with the other circuits’

standard more broadly. In In re Constar International Inc.

Securities Litigation, the court explained that “we require that

each Rule 23 component be satisfied.” 585 F.3d 774, 780 (3d

Cir. 2009) (emphasis added) (citing In re Hydrogen Peroxide

Antitrust Litig., 552 F.3d 305, 310 (3d Cir. 2009) (“Hydrogen

Peroxide”)). Recognizing the importance of the class certification decision, the court emphasized that “district courts,

where appropriate, [are] to ‘delve beyond the pleadings to

determine whether the requirements for class certification are

satisfied.’ ” Id. (quoting Hydrogen Peroxide, 552 F.3d at 316;

Newton, 259 F.3d at 167). It further elucidated, “[a]n overlap

between a class certification requirement and the merits of a

claim is no reason to decline to resolve relevant disputes when

necessary to determine whether a class certification requirement is met.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). The

Third Circuit thus requires a district court “determination”

that the “requirements” of Rule 23 have been “satisfied.” Id.

While we readily recognize the benefit of the additional cases

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available to us in conducting our review, we respectfully disagree with the First Circuit’s conclusion that the Third Circuit

allows a more lax standard of review than do other circuits.

New Motor Vehicles is on firmer ground describing the

Eighth Circuit’s decision in Blades, though we find the language in that case more nuanced than New Motor Vehicles

describes, and we disagree that Blades “suggests substantial

differences” from other circuits. New Motor Vehicles, 522

F.3d at 24. The Blades court cited Falcon in describing the

standard as follows: 

To determine whether common questions predominate, a court must conduct a limited preliminary

inquiry, looking behind the pleadings. In conducting

this preliminary inquiry, however, the court must

look only so far as to determine whether, given the

factual setting of the case, if the plaintiffs [sic] general allegations are true, common evidence could

suffice to make out a prima facie showing for the

class . . . . 

The preliminary inquiry at the class certification

stage may require the court to resolve disputes going

to the factual setting of the case, and such disputes

may overlap with the merits of the case. See Szabo

v. Bridgeport Machs., Inc., 249 F.3d 672, 676-77

(7th Cir. 2001). Nonetheless, such disputes may be

resolved only insofar as resolution is necessary to

determine the nature of the evidence that would be

sufficient, if the plaintiff’s general allegations were

true, to make out a prima facie case for the class.

Blades, 400 F.3d at 566-67 (some citations omitted) (emphasis added). 

While this language is not as definitive as that used by the

Second Circuit in IPO, for example, it sets up essentially the

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same standard. Under Blades, district courts in the Eighth Circuit must “resolve” factual disputes going to the “setting of

the case,” which we understand to mean the factual circumstances dictating whether the plaintiffs have met the Rule 23

requirements. Id. at 567. Supporting this understanding is

Blades’s later statement explaining that “[t]o certify a class

action under Rule 23(b)(3), the Court must find that: 1) common questions predominate . . . and 2) class resolution is

superior to other available methods for the fair and efficient

adjudication of the controversy.” Id. at 569 (emphasis added).

Finally, like IPO, Blades understands Eisen as prohibiting the

district court from making preliminary findings on merits

issues not related to the Rule 23 resolution. See id. at 566-67;

see also Richard A. Nagareda, Class Actions in the Administrative State: Kalven and Rosenfield Revisited, 75 U.Chi. L.

Rev. 603, 616 (2008) (“Nagareda, Class Actions”). Not surprisingly, then, IPO cited Blades as a key case supporting its

conclusion to require district court determinations that each of

the Rule 23 requirements is met. IPO, 471 F.3d at 38. 

We thus view whether an appellate court requires district

courts to “resolve,” id.; “find,” Unger, 401 F.3d at 319-20; or

“determine,” IPO, 471 F.3d at 40-41, that Rule 23 requirements have been met, as essentially, even if not precisely, the

same standard.6 To characterize such usage as embodying

“substantial differences” seems to create a distinction where

none exists. See New Motor Vehicles, 522 F.3d at 24; see also

Richard A. Nagareda, Class Certification in the Age of Aggregate Proof, 84 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 97, 113-14 (2009) (Nagareda,

6We recognize that these words imply slightly different approaches, and

we agree with the IPO court’s thoughtful discussion of resisting use of the

word “ ‘findings’ because the word usually implies that a district judge is

resolving a disputed issue of fact,” and the Rule 23 inquiry, though it may

require findings in some cases, “is really a mixed question of fact and

law.” 471 F.3d at 40. We cannot, however, agree that the difference in

usage is significant enough that circuit courts using these various words

employ substantially different standards. Cf. New Motor Vehicles, 522

F.3d at 24.

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Aggregate Proof) (describing federal courts as moving toward

an “essentially uniform” standard that is “now-settled law”).

Under any of these articulations, the charge to the district

court follows the analysis the IPO court explained, and we

agree, that Falcon and Eisen require. IPO, 471 F.3d at 41. The

district court must analyze underlying facts and legal issues

going to the certification questions regardless of any overlap

with the merits. However, this does not mean a district court

should put the actual resolution of the merits cart before the

motion to dismiss, summary judgment, and trial horses by

reaching out to decide issues unnecessary to the Rule 23

requirements. 

Having discussed our sister circuits’ treatment of this issue,

we now turn to the standard in our circuit as established by

our previous cases.

C. Ninth Circuit Precedent

[6] Since we first addressed the issue in the wake of the

Eisen and Falcon decisions, our cases have made clear that a

district court inquiry overlapping with the merits is permissible, and often required, under Rule 23. See Moore v. Hughes

Helicopters, Inc., 708 F.2d 475, 480 (9th Cir. 1983)

(“Although some inquiry into the substance of a case may be

necessary to ascertain satisfaction of the commonality and

typicality requirements of Rule 23(a), it is improper to

advance a decision on the merits to the certification stage.”

(citation omitted)). Later, we said that a district court is “at

liberty to consider evidence which goes to the requirements of

Rule 23 even though the evidence may also relate to the

underlying merits of the case.” Hanon v. Dataproducts Corp.,

976 F.2d 497, 509 (9th Cir. 1992) (internal quotation marks

omitted); see also Staton v. Boeing Co., 327 F.3d 938, 954

(9th Cir. 2003) (“The court may not go so far, of course, as

to judge the validity of [the merits] claims. . . . But the

breadth and consistency of class counsel’s initial evidence

places the district court’s finding of commonality well within

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that court’s discretion.” (citation omitted)). We have also specifically cited Eisen in rejecting a party’s argument that Eisen

prohibits any inquiry overlapping with the merits and explaining that such an overlapping inquiry is sometimes necessary

under Rule 23. See Blackie, 524 F.2d at 897 (“Nor is the class

issue separable from the merits in all cases (including this

one). The common questions, typicality, conflicts and adequacy of representation, and predominance tests, are determinations . . . which may require review of the same facts and

the same law presented by review of the merits.” (citations omitted)).7

[7] We have adhered to the Supreme Court’s guidance in

holding that “[a] class may only be certified if we are ‘satisfied, after a rigorous analysis, that the prerequisites of Rule

23(a) have been satisfied.’ ” Hanon, 976 F.2d at 509 (quoting

7Many other decisions have similarly shown this circuit’s proper, narrow reading of the “no merits inquiry” passage from Eisen to prohibit only

merits inquiries unnecessary for the class certification decision. See, e.g.,

McElmurry v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Ass’n, 495 F.3d 1136, 1141-42 (9th Cir.

2007) (rejecting the appellants’ broad claim relying on misunderstood language from Eisen); Staton, 327 F.3d at 954 (citing Eisen in explaining that

a merits inquiry is improper at the class certification stage though the district court was “well within” its discretion in considering overlapping

issues); Valentino v. Carter-Wallace, Inc., 97 F.3d 1227, 1232 (9th Cir.

1996) (discussing Eisen as prohibiting “a separate hearing to consider the

merits of the plaintiffs’ claims when determining class certification”);

Hanon, 976 F.2d at 509 (describing Eisen as holding “a motion for class

certification is not the appropriate point at which to resolve the merits of

a plaintiff’s claim”); Wright v. Schock, 742 F.2d 541, 544-45 (9th Cir.

1984) (understanding Eisen narrowly to allow a summary judgment

motion before the class certification decision); Moore, 708 F.2d at 480

(“Although some inquiry into the substance of a case may be necessary to

ascertain satisfaction of the commonality and typicality requirements of

Rule 23(a), it is improper to advance a decision on the merits to the class

certification stage.”); Jordan v. County of Los Angeles, 669 F.2d 1311,

1321-22 (9th Cir.), (characterizing Eisen as confirming the narrow rule

that “the class representative need not demonstrate a likelihood of success

on the merits in order to maintain a class action”), vacated on other

grounds, 459 U.S. 810 (1982). 

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Falcon, 457 U.S. at 161). We have also, however, recognized

that Falcon contemplated cases in which “the issues are plain

enough from the pleadings” and do not require analysis

beyond those papers. 457 U.S. at 160; Chamberlan v. Ford

Motor Co., 402 F.3d 952, 961 (9th Cir. 2005) (per curiam)

(“The Supreme Court thus recognized over twenty years ago

that a rigorous analysis does not always result in a lengthy

explanation or in-depth review of the record.”); Hanlon v.

Chrysler Corp., 150 F.3d 1011, 1023 (9th Cir. 1998). Thus,

in some cases, the pleadings will be sufficient to render the

certification decision, and in others, the district court must

make determinations on facts overlapping with the merits. 

In addition, our cases have understood that Falcon, like

Rule 23 itself, requires “questions of law or fact that were

common to the claims.” 457 U.S. at 158 (emphasis added).

Therefore, we have found class certification proper where a

“plaintiff is attacking defendants’ discriminatory practices

against females, and this is not just as it applied to plaintiff

only,” because such a claim “identifies a common legal issue,

discrimination against women, and a common factual problem, discrimination as applied” by the defendant. Bouman v.

Block, 940 F.2d 1211, 1232 (9th Cir. 1991) (internal quotation

marks omitted); see also Rodriguez v. Hayes, No. 08-56156,

2010 WL 6394, at *12 (9th Cir. Jan. 4, 2010) (“[T]he commonality requirements ask[s] us to look only for some shared

legal issue or a common core of facts.”). We have also, of

course, rejected the “across-the-board” claims that Falcon

prohibited, and we have denied class certification when a rigorous analysis did not show the class would implicate common questions. See, e.g., Lozano v. AT&T Wireless Servs.,

Inc., 504 F.3d 718, 730 (9th Cir. 2007) (citing Falcon in

rejecting certification of a class action based on the unconscionability of a class action waiver because the district court

did not perform the requisite analysis). As one example, we

have explained that “commonality is satisfied where the lawsuit challenges a system-wide practice or policy that affects

all of the putative class members,” because such a system

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implicates common factual questions. Armstrong, 275 F.3d at

868. 

[8] Our most recent statement considering Falcon and

Eisen comports with this understanding as well. Writing for

the court in United Steel Workers v. ConocoPhillips Co.,

Judge Bybee explained that it is the plaintiff’s theory that

matters at the class certification stage, not whether the theory

will ultimately succeed on the merits. See No. 09-56578, 2010

WL 22701, at *5 (9th Cir. Jan. 6, 2010). We thus found

reversible error because the district court did not consider

whether the plaintiff’s legal theory “was one in which common issues of law and or fact did not predominate,” and

instead found the class did not meet Rule 23’s requirements

because “ ‘there can be no assurances that [plaintiffs] w[ould]

prevail on this theory.’ ” Id. (citing the district court) (first

emphasis added). In short, we have consistently held that

when considering how the facts and legal issues apply to a

class under Rule 23(a), the district court must focus on common questions and common issues, not common proof or

likely success on the questions commonly raised. See id. 

For the most part, the dozens of district court cases in this

circuit parsing Eisen, Falcon, and our precedent, have considered Eisen’s language in context, concluding that they must

make determinations that the requirements of Rule 23 have

been met, and acknowledging that these determinations will

sometimes require examining issues that overlap with the

merits. See, e.g., Endres v. Wells Fargo Bank, No. C 06-7019,

2008 WL 344204, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 6, 2008) (“[T]he

court is not permitted to make a preliminary inquiry into the

merits of the plaintiffs’ claims at that stage of the litigation.

Nevertheless, the court must consider evidence relating to the

merits if such evidence also goes to the requirements of Rule

23.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); Westways World Travel, Inc. v. AMR Corp., 218 F.R.D. 223, 230

(C.D. Cal. 2003) (“Although the Supreme Court once stated

that courts have no authority to conduct a preliminary inquiry

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into the merits of a suit in order to determine whether it may

be maintained as a class action, [citing Eisen] later cases

make clear that a preliminary inquiry into the merits is sometimes necessary to make a meaningful determination of class

certification issues. At the same time, the court is required to

take the allegations of the plaintiff’s complaint as true. Plaintiff bears the burden of showing that the elements of Rule 23

are met.” (citations omitted)).8 These cases have correctly

8That district courts must consider questions overlapping with the merits, if doing so is necessary to find the Rule 23 requirements met, is the

understanding of the majority of district court orders considering the issue

in this circuit. See Colvin v. Citigroup Global Mkts., Inc., No. C 09-00238,

2009 WL 1657331, at *1-2 (N.D. Cal. June 11, 2009) (hearing issues

overlapping with merits before class certification motion); In re First Am.

Corp. ERISA Litig., 258 F.R.D. 610, 616 (C.D. Cal. 2009) (citing Eisen

but also noting Falcon’s statement that class determinations are often “enmeshed” with merits issues); In re Cooper Cos. Sec. Litig., 254 F.R.D.

628, 641 n.7 (C.D. Cal. 2009) (noting the obligation to consider evidence

relating to the Rule 23 determination, but stating that “[a]t the same time,

the inclusion of evidence that may speak to the merits of a case does not

mean that a district court should mistake class action certification for summary judgment”); Ballew v. Matrixx Initiatives, Inc., No. CV-07-267,

2008 WL 4831481, at *2 (E.D. Wash. Oct. 31, 2008) (“It is true that at

this stage of the proceedings the Court is not resolving whether Plaintiff

can establish that she can prove her case. Rather, the narrow question

before the Court is whether, under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23, a class action is a

proper vehicle for litigating the products liability claims brought by Plaintiff.”); Bishop v. Petro-Chem. Transp., LLC, 582 F. Supp. 2d 1290, 1305

(E.D. Cal. 2008) (“[T]he Court has evaluated the evidence of the Motor

Carrier exemption, not to determine whether plaintiff will ultimately prevail at trial, but to determine, again, whether the proposed class members

are similarly situated.”); Lindquist v. Farmers Ins. Co. of Ariz., No. CV

06-597, 2008 WL 343299, at *6 (Feb. 6, 2008 D. Ariz. 2008) (“While preliminary inquiry into the merits is sometimes appropriate to the extent necessary to evaluate class certification issues that happen to be intertwined

with facts relating to the underlying merits . . . the general rule followed

by federal courts [is] that trial courts may not decide the merits of the case

or consider the likelihood of success on the merits in determining whether

the requirements of Rule 23 class certification are met.”); Alexander v.

JBC Legal Group, P.C., 237 F.R.D. 628, 630 (D. Mont. 2006) (“It is

improper for this Court to consider the merits of the complaint beyond

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threaded the needle between Eisen, Falcon, and our precedent. 

In the less typical instances in which district courts in this

circuit have been led astray, a common reason seems to have

been a misreading of our statement in footnote 17 of Blackie

v. Barrack, in which we explained that district courts are

“bound to take the substantive allegations of the complaint as

true, thus necessarily making the class order speculative in the

sense that the plaintiff may be altogether unable to prove his

allegations.” 524 F.2d at 901 n.17; see also Edwards v. City

of Long Beach, 467 F. Supp. 2d 986, 991 (C.D. Cal. 2006)

(“The court is bound to take the substantive allegations in the

complaint as true.”). But, that statement is taken out of conwhat is necessary to decide whether the requirements of Rule 23 have

been met.”); In re Seagate Tech. II Sec. Litig., 843 F. Supp. 1341, 1367

(N.D. Cal. 1994) (noting that “district courts must examine some of the

merits” because “the adequacy of the representation cannot be ascertained

without examining the composition of the class”); Hernandez v. Alexander, 152 F.R.D. 192, 194 (D. Nev. 1993) (“The determination of whether

to certify a class does not permit or require a preliminary inquiry into the

merits. Only the class certification requirements of Rule 23 need be considered at the class certification stage. However, before certifying a class

action the trial court must be satisfied, after a rigorous analysis, that the

prerequisites of Rule 23(a) have been met.” (citations to Eisen and Falcon

omitted)); Lim v. Citizens Sav. & Loan Ass’n, 430 F. Supp. 802, 805-06

(N.D. Cal. 1976) (“Although the Eisen rule has evolved into a wedge for

broad class certification by plaintiffs, a close reading of the Eisen case

indicates the Supreme Court’s contrary intention . . . .”); El Concilio v.

Modesto Elementary Sch. Dist., No. C-76-2479, 1978 WL 56, at *1 (N.D.

Cal. May 11, 1978) (“While the Court is foreclosed from a preliminary

inquiry into the merits in order to determine whether it may be maintained

as a class action, it must determine whether plaintiffs have met their burden of establishing the existence of a claim of unlawful employment practices affecting an ascertainable class of persons of which they are

members.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); Nguyen Da

Yen v. Kissinger, 70 F.R.D. 656, 661 (N.D. Cal. 1976) (“In determining

whether a matter should proceed as a class action the court is required to

make findings concerning each essential element of the class action

rule.”). 

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text when relied on in this manner.9

 The subsequent sentences

in Blackie, which the erring district courts almost universally

neglect to include, explained that, although “the court may not

put the plaintiff to preliminary proof of his claim, it does

require sufficient information to form a reasonable judgment.

Lacking that, the court may request the parties to supplement

the pleadings with sufficient material to allow an informed

judgment on each of the Rule’s requirements.” 524 F.2d at

901 n.17 (emphasis added). Discussing when a certification

inquiry overlaps with the merits, we further explained in Blackie: 

Nor is the class issue separable from the merits in all

cases (including this one). The common questions,

typicality, conflicts and adequacy of representation,

Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a), and predominance tests, Fed.

R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3), are determinations . . . which

may require review of the same facts and the same

law presented by review of the merits.

524 F.2d at 897. 

[9] A better reading of Blackie, then, is to understand it as

having the meaning that our cases, and the majority of district

court opinions, have ascribed to it: Blackie is entirely consistent with the Supreme Court’s guidance, explicitly requiring

9District courts in this circuit have quoted this passage somewhat out of

context on a number of occasions. See Mateo v. V.F. Corp., No. C 08-

05313, 2009 WL 3561539, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 27, 2009) (citing Blackie

though noting that the defense’s arguments addressed only the merits and

not the Rule 23 inquiry); Perez v. Safety-Kleen Sys., Inc., 253 F.R.D. 508,

511 (N.D. Cal. 2008) (noting that “the court must accept the substantive

allegations contained in plaintiffs’ complaints as true”); Nw. Fruit Co. v.

A. Levy & J. Zentner Co., 116 F.R.D. 384, 388 (E.D. Cal. 1986) (same);

see also Steig D. Olson, “Chipping Away”: The Misguided Trend Toward

Resolving Merits Disputes as Part of the Class Certification Calculus, 43

U.S.F. L. Rev. 935, 949 n.89 (2009) (understanding Blackie as requiring

acceptance of a plaintiff’s claims as to not only merits questions, but Rule

23 requirements as well). 

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a district court to probe behind the pleadings if doing so is

necessary to make findings on the Rule 23 certification decision. Thus, Blackie does not, and could not, require the district court to unquestioningly accept a plaintiff’s arguments as

to the necessary Rule 23 determinations. The sense in which

Blackie referred to class certification as speculative is the

same way in which we most recently, and more artfully,

described the inquiry: 

[A] court can never be assured that a plaintiff will

prevail on a given legal theory prior to a dispositive

ruling on the merits, and a full inquiry into the merits

of a putative class’s legal claims is precisely what

both the Supreme Court and we have cautioned is

not appropriate for a Rule 23 certification inquiry.

United Steel Workers, 2010 WL 22701, at *5.

In short, the explanation we provide today is not a new

standard at all. Though a small number of district courts in

this circuit have misunderstood Blackie and relied on Eisen in

the way that the Second Circuit has cautioned against, and

that we now reject, the precedent from this court is consistent.

We are unable to find a single case in our court that incorrectly relied on the “no merits inquiry” language from Eisen

in certifying a class without examining necessary issues

because they overlapped with the merits. Cf. Caridad, 191

F.3d at 291-92 (applying the “no merits inquiry” language

from Eisen out of context to prohibit the proper Rule 23 analysis). Our explanation confirms what our decisions have held

for more than twenty-five years: A district court must sometimes resolve factual issues related to the merits to properly

satisfy itself that Rule 23’s requirements are met, but the purpose of the district court’s inquiry at this stage remains

focused on, for example, common questions of law or fact

under Rule 23(a)(2), or predominance under Rule 23(b)(3),

not the proof of answers to those questions or the likelihood

of success on the merits. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 158 (requiring

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a “specific presentation identifying the questions of law or

fact that were common to the claims of respondent and of the

members of the class he sought to represent” (emphasis

added)); United Steel Workers, 2010 WL 22701, at *5 (district court erred in basing its decision on whether the plaintiffs

could prove merits rather than whether their claims implicated

common questions of law or fact). Of course, for class certification to be proper, the common questions cannot simply

arise from artful pleading. Plaintiffs must raise questions that

the district court concludes, after a rigorous analysis, are susceptible to common resolution at a later stage.

D. Clarifying the Standard

1. The Proper Standard of Rule 23 Adjudication 

This review of Supreme Court dictates, as well as our own

and other circuits’ treatment of the issue, leads us to recognize

a number of constant holdings across circuits that we must

incorporate into our clarification of the proper standard governing a district court in considering a Rule 23 motion for

class certification. 

To begin with, at the class certification stage, while Eisen

prohibits a court from making determinations on the merits

that do not overlap with the Rule 23 inquiry, district courts

must make determinations that each requirement of Rule 23

is actually met. This bedrock rule is consistent with the

Supreme Court’s statements, other circuits’ decisions, and our

long-standing precedent. While plaintiffs need not make more

than allegations as to their substantive claims, whether the suit

is appropriate for class resolution must be actually demonstrated, not just alleged, to the district court’s satisfaction. 

In addition, in the cases such as IPO in which courts have

recognized how Eisen is sometimes misunderstood, those circuits have uniformly reserved discretion with the district court

to avoid a trial-level inquiry at the certification stage despite

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the need to find the Rule 23 requirements met.10 See, e.g.,

Blades, 400 F.3d at 567 (“The closer any dispute at the class

certification stage comes to the heart of the claim, the more

cautious the court should be in ensuring that it must be

resolved in order to determine the nature of the evidence the

plaintiff would require.”). District courts must maintain the

ability to cut off discovery to avoid either party bootstrapping

a trial or summary judgment motion into the certification

stage. Nearly every circuit to consider the issue, including our

own, has recognized the practical importance of the certification decision as leverage for settlement, yet Rule 23 gives neither party the right to turn the certification decision into a

trial. 

When reading recent class certification cases, one also

notices the prevalence of securities fraud cases, and particularly the fraud-on-the-market presumption, in the evolution of

the Rule 23 standard. See, e.g., Oscar Private Equity Invs. v.

Allegiance Telecom, Inc., 487 F.3d 261, 264 (5th Cir. 2007);

IPO, 471 F.3d at 30-31; Bowe v. PolyMedica Corp. (In re

PolyMedica Corp. Secs. Litig.), 432 F.3d 1, 6-7 (1st Cir.

2005); Unger, 401 F.3d at 323-24; Gariety, 368 F.3d at 364-

66; West v. Prudential Sec., Inc., 282 F.3d 935, 937-38 (7th

Cir. 2002). 

It is an interesting feature of the case law’s development

that it has occurred largely in these fraud-on-the-market cases,

in which a plaintiff typically must show the six “basic elements” of a securities fraud action, Dura Pharms., Inc. v.

10IPO’s “release valve” reads as follows: 

[W]e reach the following conclusions: . . . (5) a district judge has

ample discretion to circumscribe both the extent of discovery

concerning Rule 23 requirements and the extent of a hearing to

determine whether such requirements are met in order to assure

that a class certification motion does not become a pretext for a

partial trial of the merits. 

471 F.3d at 41. 

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Broudo, 544 U.S. 336, 341-42 (2005), and the efficient market component of the causation element overlaps with the

merits. We must, then, be aware that applying the same procedural rules, such as Rule 23, can lead to different outcomes

when the underlying legal and factual framework is different.

See, e.g., Hohider v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 574 F.3d 169,

182-85 (3d Cir. 2009) (describing how the pattern and practice evidentiary framework from Title VII cases is not perfectly applicable in the context of the Americans with

Disabilities Act). 

Thus, in contrast to a securities class action based on a

fraud-on-the-market theory, in a pattern and practice discrimination case, a plaintiff will typically not come to court in the

first place without anecdotal evidence. For practical purposes,

assuming a plaintiff possesses anecdotal evidence, the plaintiff’s statistical evidence does not overlap with the merits, it

largely is the merits. See Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust,

487 U.S. 977, 986-87 (1988); Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v.

United States, 431 U.S. 324, 337-39 (1977). This means that

disputes over whose statistics are more persuasive are often

not disputes about whether the plaintiffs raise common issues

or questions, but are really arguments going to proof of the

merits. See Nagareda, Class Actions, supra, at 619-20

(“Nowhere is this [disputed statistics] problem more acute

than in employment discrimination class actions centered on

statistical analysis of an aggregate nature.”). Of course, if one

party argued that the other party’s statistics were unreliable or

based on an unaccepted method, this may be an issue the district court would have to resolve to determine whether the

potentially problematic statistics were even capable of raising

a common question. 

In fact, after IPO, but before his recent elevation to the Second Circuit, Judge Gerard Lynch recognized this problem in

a Title VII gender discrimination case in which the plaintiffs

were seeking to certify on the same grounds as those here.

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tiffs’ statistics demonstrated commonality, Judge Lynch

addressed IPO’s application in a Title VII, gender discrimination context.11

The problem, the district court explained, was that “[i]n

deciding that the class certification order complied with In re

IPO, it is important to note that disparate impact cases present

unique difficulties in analyzing the commonality requirement

of Rule 23(a). Plaintiffs in disparate impact cases often rely

on statistical evidence to prove the merits of their claim.”

Hnot v. Willis Group Holdings Ltd., 241 F.R.D. 204, 210-11

(S.D.N.Y. 2007). The court continued, “[i]n such a case, however, the same evidence must be considered to determine

whether a plaintiff has satisfied the commonality requirement.” Id. at 211. 

In resolving this problem and certifying the class, the district court noted, “[c]ontrary to defendants’ assertions, In re

IPO does not stand for the proposition that the Court should,

or is even authorized to, determine which of the parties’

expert reports is more persuasive. Defendants ignore the fact

that In re IPO specifically rejected this interpretation of Rule

23.” Id. at 210. Instead, Judge Lynch explained, “In re IPO

reiterated that ‘experts’ disagreement on the merits—whether

a discriminatory impact [can] be shown—[is] not a valid

basis for denying class certification.’ ” Id. (alterations in original) (quoting IPO, 471 F.3d at 35). Thus, the court could

only “examine the expert reports as far as they bear on the

Rule 23 determination.” Id.

Judge Lynch similarly clarified, with regard to the disparate

treatment issue in the case before him, that “plaintiffs and

defendants disagree on whose statistical findings and observations are more credible, but this disagreement is relevant only

11The plaintiffs in Hnot pled both disparate impact and disparate treatment theories of discrimination under Title VII. See Hnot v. Willis Group

Holdings Ltd., 228 F.R.D. 476, 486 (S.D.N.Y. 2005). 

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to the merits of plaintiffs’ claim—whether plaintiffs actually

suffered disparate treatment—and not to whether plaintiffs

have asserted common questions of fact or law; plaintiffs’

ultimate success at trial on the merits requires an answer to

that question, specifically that defendants actually did discriminate against plaintiffs.” Id. at 210-11. “By asking the

Court to decide which expert report is more credible, defendants are requesting that the Court look beyond the Rule 23

requirements and decide the issue on the merits, a practice In

re IPO specifically cautions against.” Id. at 210.

Thus, in addition to demonstrating Rule 23’s proper implementation in various legal contexts (securities class actions

versus Title VII claims), Hnot also illustrates a second feature

of the certification cases that we must address. Because the

fraud-on-the-market cases are typically decided under Rule

23(b)(3)’s predominance requirement, a related feature of the

circuit court cases considering the proper standard a district

court applies, when deciding whether to certify a class, is the

difference between cases describing review of evidence under

Rule 23(a) and those under Rule 23(b).12 We are unaware of

any argument claiming that a different standard should apply

in the two inquiries, and the cases generally treat the precedent as applying equally to both contexts. We do, however,

note that the inquiry cannot be divorced from the text of Rule

23, which, of course, requires plaintiffs to make different

showings under different parts of the rule. This distinction

helps order the doctrine, keeping in mind the different

requirements under Rule 23(a) and (b) and how those requirements may play out in a district court’s certification decision.

This insight derives from the Supreme Court’s explanation

of the predominance test under Rule 23(b)(3). Predominance,

the Court explained, “tests whether proposed classes are suffi12More specifically, as the cases demonstrate, is the standard for evidence under Rule 23(a)(2), commonality, versus Rule 23(b)(3), predominance. 

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ciently cohesive to warrant adjudication by representation,”

Amchem Prods., Inc. v. Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 623 (1997),

a standard “far more demanding” than the commonality

requirement of Rule 23(a), id. at 623-24. Thus, we would

expect that cases in which the parties are contesting facts

underlying the Rule 23(b)(3) determination may often require

more determinations by the district court than those in which

Rule 23(a)(2) is the primarily contested issue. Rule 23(a)(2)

is about invoking common questions, see Falcon, 457 U.S. at

158, whereas Rule 23(b)(3) requires a district court to formulate “some prediction as to how specific issues will play out

in order to determine whether common or individual issues

predominate in a given case,” New Motor Vehicles, 522 F.3d

at 20 (internal quotation marks omitted). We thus should not

be surprised that a district court will have to make more precise factual determinations under Rule 23(b)(3) than under

Rule 23(a)(2). This insight does not apply a procedural rule

differently in two like contexts; it applies the text of Rule 23

itself to the district court’s task. 

While we find the case law across circuits more uniform

than some courts have implied, see id. at 24, to the extent it

is not, this result may be because of courts’ failure to recognize this key difference between a district court’s job under

Rule 23(a)(2) and its job under Rule 23(b)(3).13 This conclusion is further supported when one notices that Falcon’s primary inquiry was under Rule 23(a), 457 U.S. at 156-58,

whereas many of the circuit courts discussed above were concerned with Rule 23(b)’s predominance test and, thus,

required the district court to make more detailed determina13Even commentators who clearly recognize this difference often lapse

into speaking about Rule 23 as requiring a single showing, minimizing the

differences between Rule 23(a)(2) and Rule 23(b)(3). See, e.g., Nagareda,

Class Actions, supra, at 622 (“To task the court at the class certification

stage here with the making of a ‘definitive assessment’ of compliance with

Rule 23 would be to call, as a practical matter, for an assessment of which

side is right on the merits with regard to the existence of a company-wide

policy.”). 

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tions as to how the facts at issue would play out—whether

they would predominate—in the merits of the litigation. See,

e.g., Hydrogen Peroxide, 552 F.3d at 310 (Rule 23(b)(3) predominance); New Motor Vehicles, 522 F.3d at 26 (same);

IPO, 471 F.3d at 45 (same); In re PolyMedica Corp. Secs.

Litig., 432 F.3d at 3 & n.4 (same); Unger, 401 F.3d at 320,

324-25 (same); Blades, 400 F.3d at 566 (same); Gariety, 368

F.3d at 364-65 (same); Szabo, 249 F.3d at 676-77 (same). 

Though some courts have noted the difference between

Rule 23(a) and 23(b) in passing, see Hydrogen Peroxide, 552

F.3d at 310-11,14 we are not aware of any decisions detailing

the difference, and some courts have failed to note the distinction at all. See, e.g., IPO, 471 F.3d at 33 n.3 (“We see no reason to doubt that what the Supreme Court said about Rule

23(a) requirements applies with equal force to all Rule 23

requirements, including those set forth in Rule 23(b)(3).”).

We think a great deal of any disparity in different courts’

explication of the Rule 23 standard can be explained by this

difference. The lesson for future district courts is that, in a

given case, the text of Rule 23(a), as compared to Rule 23(b),

may require them to determine more or different facts (typically more under Rule 23(b)(3)) to determine whether the

plaintiffs have met their Rule 23 burden. 

[10] In short, these observations, which include the

Supreme Court’s direction, long-standing precedent in this

court, and treatment from other circuits, lead us to the following explanation of the proper standards governing a district

court’s adjudication of a Rule 23 motion for class certification. First, when considering class certification under Rule 23,

district courts are not only at liberty to, but must, perform a

rigorous analysis to ensure that the prerequisites of Rule 23

have been satisfied, and this analysis will often, though not

always, require looking behind the pleadings to issues over14See also Olson, supra, at 947 (noting that class certification must be

particularly predictive under Rule 23(b)(3)). 

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lapping with the merits of the underlying claims. It is important to note that the district court is not bound by these

determinations as the litigation progresses. Second, district

courts may not analyze any portion of the merits of a claim

that do not overlap with the Rule 23 requirements. Relatedly,

a district court performs this analysis for the purpose of determining that each of the Rule 23 requirements has been satisfied. Third, courts must keep in mind that different parts of

Rule 23 require different inquiries. For example, what must

be satisfied for the commonality inquiry under Rule 23(a)(2)

is that plaintiffs establish common questions of law and fact,

and answering those questions is the purpose of the merits

inquiry, which can be addressed at trial and at summary judgment. Fourth, district courts retain wide discretion in class

certification decisions, including the ability to cut off discovery to avoid a mini-trial on the merits at the certification

stage. Fifth, different types of cases will result in diverging

frequencies with which the district court will properly invoke

its discretion to abrogate discovery. As just one example, we

would expect a district court to circumscribe discovery more

often in a Title VII case than in a securities class action resting on a fraud-on-the-market theory, because the statistical

disputes typical to Title VII cases often encompass the basic

merits inquiry and need not be proved to raise common questions and demonstrate the appropriateness of class resolution.

Plaintiffs pleading fraud-on-the-market, on the other hand,

may have to establish an efficient market to even raise common questions or show predominance.

2. The Dissent’s “Significant Proof” Standard

In addition to setting out our own review, we feel compelled to discuss the dissent’s consideration of this issue. The

Supreme Court’s decisions in Falcon and Eisen are the primary guides to our ruling in this case. The dissent, in suggesting that we are unfaithful to Falcon, seeks to create a new

class action requirement based on a hypothetical in one sentence of Supreme Court dicta; conflates, or at least fails to disDUKES v. WAL-MART STORES 6177

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tinguish, the posture of Falcon and the present case; ignores

the weight of the many cases in other circuits arriving at the

same standard we have described above; and renders itself

unpersuasive by critiquing the district court’s eighty-fourpage analysis as insufficiently rigorous. In doing so, the dissent is unfaithful to the actual distinctions the Supreme Court

relied upon in Falcon, and variously depicts Falcon as instituting a “significant proof” “burden” or “ ‘significant proof’

requirement” that Falcon did not create. Dissent at 6247,

6454. 

We read Falcon, as has nearly every Court of Appeals to

consider the question, as creating the standard we describe

above. But in discussing what it views as the analysis required

by Falcon, the dissent quotes a portion of a sentence of Falcon dicta in footnote 15 as standing for the requirement that

plaintiffs cannot prevail at the certification stage without

showing “[s]ignificant proof that an employer operated under

a general policy of discrimination.” Id. at 6244. However, the

entire footnote sentence reads as follows: “Significant proof

that an employer operated under a general policy of discrimination conceivably could justify a class of both applicants and

employees if the discrimination manifested itself in hiring and

promotion practices in the same general fashion, such as

through entirely subjective decisionmaking processes.” Falcon, 457 U.S. at 159 n.15 (emphasis added).15

15The dissent chides us for ignoring the “ ‘significant proof’ requirement” from Falcon, an approach the dissent finds troubling, particularly

because Falcon is “directly on point.” Dissent at 6245-46. Putting aside

the fact that, unlike here, the problem in Falcon was a proposed class consisting of members of the general public who had sought employment,

represented by an employee who had sought promotion, alleging different

theories of discrimination, see Falcon, 457 U.S. at 157-58, ignoring relevant Supreme Court guidance would indeed be troubling if that was in fact

what we were doing. But the dissent mischaracterizes the role that “significant proof” played in the Falcon analysis. The statement was a hypothetical in clear dicta. Id. at 159 n.15. It is important not to apply Supreme

Court dicta “to create a new rule—one [the Court] never envisioned.”

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Falcon’s discussion of two distinct processes—hiring and

promotion—for which “significant proof” could prove sufficient to certify a single class, is an unusually high standard

that Plaintiffs here need not meet because they did not present

the distinct legal theories of recovery that the Falcon plaintiffs, both employees and applicants, had pursued together in

one class. “The question before the district court was not

whether [Plaintiffs] have definitively proven disparate treatment and a disparate impact; rather, the question was whether

the basis of [Plaintiffs’] discrimination claims was sufficient

to support class certification.” Brown v. Nucor Corp., 576

F.3d 149, 156 (4th Cir. 2009), cert. denied, No. 09-981, 2010

WL 285702 (Mar. 1, 2010). 

Contrary to the dissent,16 Falcon does not say that Plaintiffs

Lopez-Rodriguez v. Holder, 560 F.3d 1098, 1099 (9th Cir. 2009) (order)

(Bea, J., dissenting from denial of reh’g en banc). Further, here, we are not

taking Supreme Court statements and “blandly shrug[ging] them off

because they were not a holding.” Newdow v. U.S. Congress, 328 F.3d

466, 480 (9th Cir. 2003) (order) (O’Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial

of reh’g en banc). Instead, we are considering the statements and avoiding

creating a new rule of law, noting that we should be particularly wary of

conceiving such a rule from dicta when the facts underlying the dicta are

easily distinguished from the present case and when the dicta relied upon

was in the form of a hypothetical. 

16The dissent reads Falcon to require a showing of evidence “sufficient

to carry plaintiffs’ burden of adducing significant proof.” Dissent at 6259.

However, the dissent’s encapsulating all of Falcon into this one phrase in

dicta ignores other key distinctions on which the Court was actually relying. Falcon does not hold that a plaintiff must prove a widespread policy

of discrimination to obtain class certification nor, of course, does it allow

a district court to certify a class based on a plaintiff’s mere allegations of

discriminatory practices. 457 U.S. at 157-58. Rather, Falcon only says that

an individual who, on his own behalf, does not allege any overall policy

cannot, by proving his own case, establish on the merits an inference relevant to the group, thus remedying his failure to otherwise make a showing

of commonality. Id. Such a statement is a far cry from suggesting, as does

the dissent, see Dissent at 6247, 6249-50, that a class cannot be certified

unless the plaintiffs prove a discriminatory overall policy — in which case

there would be no reason to have a trial at all. 

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must show a common policy of proven discrimination at the

class action stage, rather than just a common policy alleged

to be discriminatory. 457 U.S. at 158-59. Of course, as we

have already explained, named plaintiffs must do more than

merely allege discriminatory practices against themselves. Id.

As we demonstrate below, Plaintiffs here do so, making

showings through their expert testimony and statistical evidence, which further distinguishes the certification decision

here from that decision in Falcon. In maintaining otherwise

in its discussion, the dissent confuses merits decisions such as

Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 336, and class action certification decisions.17 It also ignores our previous statement examining Falcon footnote 15 in which we explained that “[w]e understand

footnote fifteen of Falcon to present a demonstrative example

rather than a limited exception to the overall skepticism

toward broad discrimination class actions.” Staton, 327 F.3d

at 955. In other words, as we have previously described

Falcon, the Supreme Court “does not generally ban all broad

classes but rather precludes a class action that, on the basis of

one form of discrimination against one or a handful of plaintiffs, seeks to adjudicate all forms of discrimination against all

members of a group protected by Title VII, § 1981, or a similar statute.” Id.

The dissent also largely ignores Supreme Court guidance

by failing to recognize that Falcon addressed the claim that

the allegations of an employee subject to discrimination in

17The dissent’s claim that Plaintiffs must prove discrimination at this

stage, Dissent at 6247, conflates the class certification and merits phases

of the litigation. See Brown, 576 F.3d at 153 (“[A]llegations of a practice

of disparate treatment in the exercise of unbridled discretion raises questions of law and fact common to all subject black employees.” (emphasis

added) (internal quotation marks omitted))); Shipes v. Trinity Indus., 987

F.2d 311, 316 (5th Cir. 1993) (“The threshold requirements of commonality and typicality are not high . . . . Allegations of similar discriminatory

employment practices, such as the use of entirely subjective personnel

processes that operate to discriminate, satisfy the commonality and typicality requirements of Rule 23(a).” (emphasis added)). 

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promotion decisions “fairly encompassed” the claims of nonemployees allegedly subject to discrimination in a discrete

hiring process. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 158. Such a determination

under Rule 23 is clearly distinct from an inquiry where, as

here, a class consists entirely of individuals actually employed

under the same corporate policies.18 Critically, in Falcon, the

individual plaintiff’s claim was based on promotion practices

for his allegations and hiring practices for the putative class

members, yet Falcon’s “complaint contained no factual allegations concerning petitioner’s hiring practices,” id. at 150,

despite the fact that the class members’ claims depended on

pattern or practice in hiring, id. at 159. In contrast, where the

individual plaintiffs seek to prove their own cases through

pattern or practice methods, they are necessarily dependent on

proving facts relevant to others of the same protected group

subject to the same policy, class action or no class action. See

Watson, 487 U.S. at 994-95; see also Nagareda, Aggregate

Proof, supra, at 150 (“The terms ‘pattern’ and ‘practice’

themselves imply an aggregate perspective.”). 

18Indeed, the record provides significant evidence of central control.

The district court found that, “[h]aving reviewed the extensive evidence

submitted by the parties, . . . Wal-Mart’s systems for compensating and

promoting in-store employees are sufficiently similar across regions and

stores to support a finding that the manner in which these systems affect

the class raises issues that are common to all class members.” Dukes, 222

F.R.D. at 149. Yet the dissent seems to assume that central control was not

a pervasive feature of Wal-Mart’s baseline promotion policies, or that if

it was, such control undercuts Plaintiffs’ case. Dissent at 6253 (rejecting

Plaintiffs’ claim that “ ‘the subjective decision-making in compensation

and promotions takes place within parameters and guidelines that are

highly uniform, and within a strong corporate culture,’ ” because “this

argument is contrary to the thrust of plaintiffs’ legal theory”) (citing

Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 157). Such a view ignores the precise contours of

Plaintiffs’ claims. Questioning the degree of central control over the

framework policies is particularly surprising given the district court’s findings, see Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 145-54, and additional evidence in the

record that, for example, Wal-Mart posted employees in the “Rising Star

Program” who were eligible for promotion on a wall in the Bentonville

Home Office. 

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Finally, Plaintiffs here are unlike the plaintiff in Falcon,

who failed to “otherwise [ ]support[ his] allegation that the

company ha[d] a policy of discrimination” except by claiming

that he himself had been denied a promotion on discriminatory grounds. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 157-58. As we detail below,

Plaintiffs here have introduced “significant proof” of WalMart’s policies, and their effects on the certified class, and

have introduced evidence of far more than “the validity of

[their] own claim[s].” Id. Even if the dissent were correct in

creating a “significant proof” standard (or burden, or requirement), which it is not, it would not apply to Plaintiffs in this

case. “Subjective decisionmaking processes” are exactly what

the Plaintiffs allege here and what the Supreme Court’s hypothetical expressed concern with in Falcon. Id. at 159 n.15. In

addition, it is not clear that such a standard, if it existed, need

apply to Plaintiffs—everyone of whom was or is an employee

—at all because they are not situated as the Falcon plaintiffs,

who were both employees seeking promotion and job applicants pursuing a position and thus needed to show different

facts and allege diverging legal theories. 

Again unlike in Falcon, and as discussed in detail below,

the district court here did not presume or fail “to evaluate

carefully the legitimacy [of Plaintiffs’ claims to be] proper

class representative[s],” id. at 160, but rather found Rule 23

satisfied only after undertaking the “rigorous analysis” the

Supreme Court requires, see Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 143-69.

The specific recognition of Falcon’s “rigorous analysis”

requirement guided the district court’s analysis throughout its

lengthy order, and the court made determinations that each of

Rule 23’s requirements were satisfied. Id. at 143-44, 166-68

(applying Falcon). The dissent’s attenuated claim that the district court abused its discretion by failing to require a “specific presentation identifying the questions of law or fact that

were common to the claims of respondent and of the members

of the class he sought to represent,” see Falcon, 457 U.S. at

158, is vitiated by the twenty-four pages in which the district

court exhaustively performed exactly that analysis, explicitly

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considering questions of law and fact that were common to

the members of the class and the named representatives,19 see

Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 145-69. In short, and as we will now

explain, at the certification stage, it is difficult for us to envision a more rigorous analysis than the one the district court

conducted.

III. CERTIFICATION OF THIS CLASS

Unsurprisingly, the class in this case is broad and diverse,

encompassing both salaried and hourly employees in a range

of positions, who are or were employed at one or more of

Wal-Mart’s 3,400 stores across the country. The district court

found that the large class is united by a complex array of

company-wide practices, which Plaintiffs contend discriminate against women.

A. Rule 23(a)

At the outset of considering the district court’s certification

order in light of the above-clarified standard, we note two facets of the district court’s review. 

First, this case reached us after a significantly more searching review than cases in other circuit courts explaining the

Rule 23 standard. In Szabo, for example, the district court “assumed that whatever [the plaintiff] allege[d] must be true,”

and it “[p]roceed[ed] as if class certification under Rule 23

were governed by the same principles as evaluating the sufficiency of the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6).” 249 F.3d at

674-75. In Gariety, the case came to the Fourth Circuit after

19These common issues of law and fact, necessary to bridge the gap

from the class representatives to the entire class, are discussed in Part

III.A. For now, it is sufficient to note that they include an analysis of similar promotion and compensation policies Wal-Mart applied to all employees, a dominant corporate culture Wal-Mart maintained throughout its

stores, and statistical evidence showing class-wide gender disparities in

compensation. Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 145-69. 

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the district court had concluded that “the fact that the plaintiffs have asserted that the Keystone market was efficient is

enough at the certification stage to find the market efficient.”

368 F.3d at 361 (emphasis added); see also Vallario v. Vandehey, 554 F.3d 1259, 1265-66 (10th Cir. 2009) (district court

abused its discretion in thinking it was barred from any consideration of action’s merits); IPO, 471 F.3d at 30 (district

court finding that only “plaintiffs—who have the burden of

proof at class certification—must make ‘some showing’ ”). 

In other words, previous circuit courts addressing similar

issues have been faced with district courts making the same

mistake that we described a small number of district courts in

this circuit have made in citing Blackie out of context: refusing to consider any issue overlapping with the merits, and

assuming the plaintiffs’ substantive allegations as true for the

Rule 23 inquiry. As we demonstrate below, such review is

entirely dissimilar from the district court’s review in this case.

Second, we also note that resolving this case requires a

close reading of the district court’s lengthy opinion to determine the standard the district court applied in deciding to certify the class. Contrary to the claims of Wal-Mart and the

dissent, such a reading of the district court’s individual determinations on Rule 23(a) shows that the district court actually

weighed evidence and made findings sufficient under the

standard we have described above. 

[11] In broadly discussing the standard of review, the district court stated the following:

A party seeking to certify a class must demonstrate that it has met all four requirements of Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a), and at least one of the

requirements of Rule 23(b). Rule 23(a) requires that

all of the following four factors be met . . . . In short,

the class must satisfy the requirements of numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy. . . . 

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The party seeking certification must provide facts

sufficient to satisfy Rule 23(a) and (b) requirements.

In turn, the district court must conduct a rigorous

analysis to determine that the prerequisites of Rule

23 have been met. Gen. Tel. Co. v. Falcon., 457 U.S.

147, 161 (1982). If a court is not fully satisfied, certification should be refused. . . . See Fed. R. Civ. P.

23 advisory committee’s note to 2003 amends. 

. . . . 

. . . “[A]lthough some inquiry into the substance of

a case may be necessary to ascertain satisfaction of

the commonality and typicality requirements of Rule

23(a), it is improper to advance a decision on the

merits to the certification stage.” Moore v. Hughes

Helicopters, Inc., 708 F.2d 475, 480 (9th Cir. 1983)

(citation omitted); see also Nelson v. United States

Steel Corp., 709 F.2d 675, 679-80 (11th Cir. 1983)

(plaintiffs’ burden at class certification “entails more

than the simple assertion of [commonality and typicality] but less than a prima facie showing of liability”) (citation omitted). 

Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 143-44 (some citations omitted) (last

alteration in original) (emphasis added). Unlike some other

district courts, which have assumed facts in a complaint, the

district court here spent significant effort explaining a

nuanced standard that clearly comprehended the need to look

well beyond the pleadings in the case. 

[12] Most importantly, as we will now explain, the district

court’s standard led to a review that complies with Falcon and

with our herein-described standards that a district court must

follow when deciding whether to certify a class.

1. Numerosity

Rule 23(a)(1) requires that the class be “so numerous that

joinder of all members is impracticable.” Wal-Mart does not

contest this point. 

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2. Commonality

Rule 23(a)(2) requires that “there are questions of law or

fact common to the class.” Commonality focuses on the relationship of common facts and legal issues among class members. See, e.g., Conte & Newberg, supra, § 3:10, at 271. We

noted in Hanlon, 150 F.3d at 1019:

Rule 23(a)(2) has been construed permissively. All

questions of fact and law need not be common to satisfy the rule. The existence of shared legal issues

with divergent factual predicates is sufficient, as is a

common core of salient facts coupled with disparate

legal remedies within the class. 

The commonality test is “qualitative rather than

quantitative”—one significant issue common to the class may

be sufficient to warrant certification, see, e.g., Savino v. Computer Credit, Inc., 173 F.R.D. 346, 352 (E.D.N.Y. 1997),

aff’d, 164 F.3d 81 (2d Cir. 1998); see also Conte & Newberg,

supra, § 3:10, at 272-74, a standard that dovetails with our

discussion above, requiring plaintiffs to show common questions or issues. 

The district court found that Plaintiffs had provided evidence sufficient to support their contention that significant

factual and legal questions are common to all class members.

After analyzing Plaintiffs’ evidence, the district court stated:

Plaintiffs have exceeded the permissive and minimal

burden of establishing commonality by providing:

(1) significant evidence of company-wide corporate

practices and policies, which include (a) excessive

subjectivity in personnel decisions, (b) gender

stereotyping, and (c) maintenance of a strong corporate culture; (2) statistical evidence of gender disparities caused by discrimination; and (3) anecdotal

evidence of gender bias. Together, this evidence

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raises an inference that Wal-Mart engages in discriminatory practices in compensation and promotion that affect all plaintiffs in a common manner.

Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 166. Discussing commonality, the district court alluded to the determinations Rule 23 requires in

certifying a class. The court stated, “Rule 23(a)(2) requires

that common questions of law or fact exist among class members.” Id. at 144. Recognizing this requirement of Rule 23, the

district court went on to make reasoned determinations that

commonality was met, concluding that “th[e] evidence more

than satisfies plaintiffs’ burden to demonstrate commonality

under Rule 23(a)(2).” Id. at 145. The district court then

detailed the four categories of commonality evidence to which

we now turn. Id. We conclude, as explained in more detail

below, that it was within the district court’s discretion, and in

line with Falcon and the standard we have clarified today, to

determine that the commonality prerequisite to class certification was satisfied. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(2).20

a. Evidence of a Common Policy of Discrimination

[13] Pursuant to Falcon, 457 U.S. at 161, Plaintiffs presented four categories of commonality evidence that the district court subjected to a “rigorous analysis”: (1) facts

supporting the existence of company-wide policies and practices that, in part through their subjectivity, provide a potential conduit for discrimination; (2) expert opinions supporting

the existence of company-wide policies and practices that

likely include a culture of gender stereotyping; (3) expert sta20Of course, returning to the standard discussed above, if the district

court had rejected Wal-Mart’s arguments regarding commonality solely

because they overlapped with “merits issues,” that would have been error.

However, as we explain in the following sections, the district court did not

do this but, instead, conducted a “rigorous analysis” of the conflicting evidence presented on the commonality question and ultimately concluded

that Plaintiffs raised “questions of law or fact common to the class.” Fed.

R. Civ. P. 23(a)(2); see Falcon, 457 U.S. at 161; Hanon, 976 F.2d at 509.

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tistical evidence of class-wide gender disparities attributable

to discrimination; and (4) anecdotal evidence from class

members throughout the country of discriminatory attitudes

held or tolerated by management. See Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at

145-66. Wal-Mart contends this evidence is insufficient to

suggest a common factual or legal question related to the existence of discrimination. 

(1) Factual Evidence 

As factual evidence, Plaintiffs presented evidence of the

following: (1) uniform personnel and management structure

across stores; (2) Wal-Mart headquarters’s extensive oversight of store operations, company-wide policies governing

pay and promotion decisions, and a strong, centralized corporate culture; and (3) consistent gender-related disparities in

every domestic region of the company. Such evidence supports Plaintiffs’ contention that Wal-Mart operates a highly

centralized company that promotes policies common to all

stores and maintains a single system of oversight. Wal-Mart

does not challenge this evidence. 

(2) Expert Opinion 

Plaintiffs presented evidence from Dr. William Bielby, a

sociologist, to interpret and explain the facts that suggest that

Wal-Mart has and promotes a strong corporate culture — a

culture that may include gender stereotyping. Dr. Bielby

based his opinion on, among other things, Wal-Mart managers’ deposition testimony; organizational charts; correspondence, memos, reports, and presentations relating to personnel

policy and practice, diversity, and equal employment opportunity issues; documents describing the culture and history of

the company; and a large body of social science research on

the impact of organizational policy and practice on workplace

bias. 

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Dr. Bielby testified that he employed a social framework

analysis to examine the distinctive features of Wal-Mart’s

policies and practices and evaluated them “against what social

science shows to be factors that create and sustain bias and

those that minimize bias.”

21 In Dr. Bielby’s opinion, “social

science research demonstrates that gender stereotypes are

especially likely to influence personnel decisions when they

are based on subjective factors, because substantial decisionmaker discretion tends to allow people to seek out and retain

stereotyping-confirming information and ignore or minimize

information that defies stereotypes.” Id. at 153 (internal quotation marks omitted). Dr. Bielby concluded that: (1) WalMart’s centralized coordination, reinforced by a strong organizational culture, sustains uniformity in personnel policy and

practice; (2) there are significant deficiencies in Wal-Mart’s

equal employment policies and practices; and (3) Wal-Mart’s

personnel policies and practices make pay and promotion

decisions vulnerable to gender bias. See id. at 153-54. 

The district court reviewed Plaintiffs’ and Wal-Mart’s competing claims as to Wal-Mart’s uniform culture and determined that “the evidence indicates that in-store pay and

promotion decisions are largely subjective and made within a

substantial range of discretion by store or district level managers, and that this is a common feature which provides a

wide enough conduit for gender bias to potentially seep into

the system.” Id. at 152. Having evaluated this evidence in

detail, the court determined “that given the evidence regarding strong uniform culture and policies, the degree and impact

of this practice is a significant question of fact common to the

class as a whole.” Id. at 153. Such a reasoned determination

is what our standard for Rule 23 requires. 

21For a description of the “social framework analysis,” see Melissa Hart

& Paul M. Secunda, A Matter of Context: Social Framework Evidence in

Employment Discrimination Class Actions, 78 Fordham L. Rev. 37, 41-55

(2009). 

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Wal-Mart vigorously challenges Dr. Bielby’s third conclusion as vague and imprecise because he concluded that WalMart is “vulnerable” to bias or gender stereotyping but failed

to identify a specific discriminatory policy at Wal-Mart. Specifically, Wal-Mart contends that Dr. Bielby’s testimony does

not meet the standards for expert testimony set forth in Federal Rule of Evidence 702 and Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 597 (1993), which held that

a trial court must act as a “gatekeeper” in determining

whether to admit or exclude expert evidence. 

Wal-Mart made an identical argument to the district court

and the district court properly rejected it. A close reading of

the district court’s order demonstrates its correct understanding of its role at the Rule 23(a)(2) certification stage — to

make factual determinations regarding evidence as it relates

to common questions of fact or law but not to decide which

parties’ evidence is ultimately more persuasive as to liability.

The court stated, “Dr. Bielby presents enough of a basis, both

in his review of the scientific literature and on the facts of the

case, to provide a foundation for his opinions.” Dukes, 222

F.R.D. at 154. The court correctly explained that whether the

jury was ultimately persuaded by those opinions was a question on the merits. For the class certification, however, Dr.

Bielby’s opinions, for which Wal-Mart did not challenge the

methodology, raised a question “of corporate uniformity and

gender stereotyping that is common to all class members.” Id.

We cannot say that considering Dr. Bielby’s opinions in this

method was an abuse of discretion. 

This conclusion is furthered by the fact that Wal-Mart did

not (and does not) challenge Dr. Bielby’s methodology or

contend that his findings lack relevance because they “do[ ]

not relate to any issue in the case,” Daubert, 509 U.S. at 591

(internal quotation marks omitted). Wal-Mart challenges only

whether certain inferences can be persuasively drawn from his

data. But because Daubert does not require a court to admit

or exclude evidence based on its persuasiveness, but rather

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requires a court to admit or exclude evidence based on its scientific reliability and relevance, id. at 587-92 (relevance standard “is a liberal one,” under which evidence is relevant if it

has “ ‘any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is

of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence’ ”

(quoting Fed. R. Evid. 401)), testing Dr. Bielby’s testimony

for “Daubert reliability” would not have addressed WalMart’s objections. It would have simply revealed what WalMart itself has admitted and courts have long accepted: that

properly analyzed social science data, like that offered by Dr.

Bielby, may support a plaintiff’s assertions that a claim is

proper for class resolution. See Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins,

490 U.S. 228, 235-36, 255 (1989) (considering similar evidence offered by expert social psychologist). 

[14] Accordingly, Wal-Mart’s contention that the district

court was required to strike Dr. Bielby’s testimony under the

Daubert test at the class certification stage, simply because

the conclusion he reached seemed unpersuasive absent certain

corroborating evidence, is misplaced.22 See Daubert, 509 U.S.

22We are not convinced by the dissent’s argument that Daubert has

exactly the same application at the class certification stage as it does to

expert testimony relevant at trial. Dissent at 6255. However, even assuming it did, the district court here was not in error. Thus we need not resolve

this issue here. 

In accepting Dr. Bielby’s social framework analysis, the district court

stated: 

The Court is further guided by Daubert v. Merrell Dow

Pharm., Inc. (Daubert II), 43 F.3d 1311, 1316 (9th Cir.1995), in

which the Ninth Circuit stated that scientific knowledge “does

not mean absolute certainty,” and that expert testimony should be

admitted when “the proffered testimony is ‘based on scientifically valid principles.’ ” Id., quoting Daubert I, 509 U.S. 579,

113 S. Ct. 2786. The Ninth Circuit continued: “Our task, then, is

to analyze not what the experts say, but what basis they have for

saying it.” Daubert II, 43 F.3d at 1316. The Court is satisfied that

Dr. Bi[e]lby’s opinion—while subject to critique—is based on

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at 595 (“The focus, of course, must be solely on principles

and methodology, not on the conclusions that they generate.”). While a jury may ultimately agree with Wal-Mart that,

in the absence of a specific discriminatory policy promulgated

by Wal-Mart, it is not more likely than not, based solely on

Dr. Bielby’s analysis, that Wal-Mart engaged in actual gender

discrimination, that question must be left to the merits stage

of the litigation (and presumably will not have to be decided

as there will be other evidence). At the class certification

valid principles. Thus, it is sufficiently probative to assist the

Court in evaluating the class certification requirements at issue in

this case. Accordingly, Defendant’s motion to strike Dr. Bilby’s

declaration is denied. 

Dukes v. Wal-Mart, Inc., 222 F.R.D. 189, 192 (N.D. Cal. 2004) (“Dukes

II”). 

On this review, regardless of whether full Daubert review is required

at the class certification stage, we cannot say that admitting Dr. Bielby’s

social framework analysis was an abuse of discretion. The district court

specifically considered Daubert’s applicability to Dr. Bielby and was

within its discretion to limit its inquiry. As the district court observed, Dr.

Bielby’s testimony could be admissible even without reaching “definitive[ ]” conclusions, because tentative rather than “conclusive determination[s]” are in “the nature of this particular field of science.” Dukes, 222

F.R.D. at 154. 

Other cases support this conclusion. The Third Circuit, citing IPO, has

noted that when the plaintiffs’ ability to prove their case “is genuinely disputed, the district court must resolve it after considering all relevant evidence. Here [in Hydrogen Peroxide], the District Court apparently

believed it was barred from resolving” these expert disputes. Hydrogen

Peroxide, 552 F.3d at 325. Unlike Hydrogen Peroxide and other cases

Wal-Mart cites, in the present case the district court heard, rather than

excluded, the bulk of the relevant evidence. As a general rule, “ ‘[d]istrict

courts are not required to hold a Daubert hearing before ruling on the

admissibility of scientific evidence,’ ” Millenkamp v. Davisco Foods Int’l,

Inc., 562 F.3d 971, 979 (9th Cir. 2009) (quoting Jaros v. E.I. DuPont (In

re Hanford Nuclear Reservation Litig.), 292 F.3d 1124, 1138 (9th Cir.

2002)). Plaintiffs clearly established foundation for Dr. Bielby’s testimony

and statistics. It was not an abuse of discretion for the district court not to

exclude them, under Daubert or otherwise. 

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stage, it is enough that Dr. Bielby presented scientifically reliable evidence tending to show that a common question of fact

—i.e., “Does Wal-Mart’s policy of decentralized, subjective

employment decision making operate to discriminate against

female employees?”—exists with respect to all members of

the class.23 This he did and, thus, we find no error in the district court’s acceptance of Dr. Bielby’s evidence to support a

finding of commonality. 

(3) Statistical Evidence 

It is well established that plaintiffs may demonstrate commonality by presenting statistical evidence, which survives a

“rigorous analysis,” sufficient to fairly raise a common question concerning whether there is class-wide discrimination.

See Falcon, 457 U.S. at 159 n.15, 161; Caridad, 191 F.3d at

292;24 see also Stastny v. S. Bell Tel. & Tel. Co., 628 F.2d

23As discussed below in Part II.A.2.b, this court and many others have

held that “delegation to supervisors, pursuant to company-wide policies,

of discretionary authority without sufficient oversight . . . gives rise to

common questions of fact warranting certification of the proposed class.”

Caridad, 191 F.3d at 291, overruled on other grounds by IPO, 471 F.3d

at 39-42; see Hnot, 241 F.R.D. at 210 (explaining that IPO did not overrule this aspect of Caridad); see also Staton, 327 F.3d at 955-56 (rejecting

argument that “decisionmaking at Boeing is too decentralized to permit a

class that combines plaintiffs from disparate locales”); Shipes v. Trinity

Indus., 987 F.2d 311, 316 (5th Cir. 1993) (upholding commonality finding

where all of company’s plants “utilized the same subjective criteria in

making personnel decisions”); Cox v. Am. Cast Iron Pipe Co., 784 F.2d

1546, 1557 (11th Cir. 1986) (holding that “ ‘[a]llegations of similar discriminatory employment practices, such as . . . [the] use of entirely subjective personnel processes that operated to discriminate, would satisfy the

commonality and typicality requirements of Rule 23(a)’ ” (alterations in

original) (quoting Carpenter v. Stephen F. Austin State Univ., 706 F.2d

608, 617 (5th Cir. 1983))); Segar v. Smith, 738 F.2d 1249, 1276 (D.C. Cir.

1984) (explaining that “subjective criteria may well serve as a veil of

seeming legitimacy behind which illegal discrimination is operating”). 

24See Hnot, 241 F.R.D. at 210 (“Caridad held, in part, that class challenges to subjective employment practices, like other disparate treatment

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267, 278 (4th Cir. 1980) (recognizing that statistical data

showing comparable disparities experienced by protected

employees may indicate a policy or practice that commonly

affects the class members and raises a common question concerning whether the pattern or practice is discriminatory).

[15] A careful reading of the district court’s treatment of

the competing statistical evidence demonstrates that, in conducting its analysis, the district court followed the correct

standard as explained in Falcon and our earlier cases, and

clarified today. 

Dr. Richard Drogin, Plaintiffs’ statistician, analyzed data at

a regional level. He ran separate regression analyses for each

of the forty-one regions25 containing Wal-Mart stores.26 He

concluded that “there are statistically significant disparities

and disparate impact claims, may satisfy the commonality requirement. In

re IPO did not even address this aspect of Caridad. . . . [I]t did not question Caridad’s holding that statistical evidence can demonstrate commonality in a challenge to subjective employment practices, which remains

controlling authority.” (citation omitted)). 

25Each region contains approximately 80 to 85 stores. 

26Regression analyses, in general terms, provide estimates of the effect

of independent variables on a single dependent variable. See Hemmings v.

Tidyman’s Inc., 285 F.3d 1174, 1183-84 & n.9 (9th Cir. 2002). The purpose of this methodology is to estimate the extent to which a particular

independent variable (in this case, gender) has influenced the dependent

variables of compensation and promotion. See id.; see also Rudebusch v.

Hughes, 313 F.3d 506, 511-12 (9th Cir. 2002). As long as the analyses

include enough relevant non-discriminatory independent variables (e.g.,

education, experience, performance, etc.), the results will indicate whether

any salary disparities are attributable to gender (thereby raising an inference of discrimination) or whether the disparities are attributable to other

factors (and thereby refuting such an inference). See Hemmings, 285 F.3d

at 1183-84 & n.9; see also EEOC v. Gen. Tel. Co. of Nw., Inc., 885 F.2d

575, 577 n.3 (9th Cir. 1989) (“A regression analysis is a common statistical tool . . . designed to isolate the influence of one particular factor —

[e.g.,] sex—on a dependent variable—[e.g.,] salary.” (internal quotation

marks omitted)). 

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between men and women at Wal-Mart in terms of compensation and promotions, that these disparities are wide-spread

across regions, and that they can be explained only by gender

discrimination.” Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 154. Dr. Marc Bendick,

Plaintiffs’ labor economics expert, conducted a “benchmarking” study comparing Wal-Mart with twenty of its competitors, concluding Wal-Mart promotes a lower percentage of

women than its competitors.27 See id.

Wal-Mart challenges Dr. Drogin’s findings and faults his

decision to conduct his research on the regional level, rather

than analyze the data store-by-store.28 However, the proper

test of whether workforce statistics should be viewed at the

macro (regional) or micro (store or sub-store) level depends

largely on the similarity of the employment practices and the

interchange of employees at the various facilities. See Kirkland v. N.Y. State Dep’t of Corr. Servs., 520 F.2d 420, 425 (2d

Cir. 1975) (recognizing that the focus of analysis depends on

the nature of a defendant’s employment practices); 2 Barbara

Lindemann & Paul Grossman, Employment Discrimination

Law 1598, 1723 (3d ed. 1996). 

Here, Dr. Drogin explained that a store-by-store analysis

would not capture: (1) the effect of district, regional, and

27“Specifically, Dr. Bendick compared, or ‘benchmarked,’ Wal-Mart

against twenty other [similar] general merchandise retailers by comparing

workforce data provided by the companies to the Equal Employment

Opportunity Commission.” Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 164. Dr. Bendick analyzed the data “to determine the extent to which women in the relevant

market sought promotion, so that an inference could be made that roughly

the same percentage of women would have [sought promotion] at WalMart if given the opportunity.” See id. As Dr. Bendick explained, “The

logic in benchmarking is that, if retail chains comparable to Wal-Mart are

successfully employing women at some rate, then women are presumably

available, interested, and qualified to hold comparable positions at WalMart at a similar rate.” Id. 

28This argument is unsurprising, and is the statistical argument similarly

situated defendants make as a matter of course. 

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company-wide control over Wal-Mart’s uniform compensation policies and procedures; (2) the dissemination of WalMart’s uniform compensation policies and procedures resulting from the frequent movement of store managers; or (3)

Wal-Mart’s strong corporate culture. Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at

157. 

In conducting its rigorous analysis of these claims, the district court first re-stated its standard of review. Its decision

makes clear that the district court made determinations that

Plaintiffs’ statistics raised common questions of fact or law

only after it rigorously analyzed them, probing significantly

behind the pleadings and resolving facts necessary to make

determinations on Rule 23(a)(2). 

Discussing the proper standard for evaluating the statistics,

the district court said it rejected a full-blown merits evaluation

of the evidence but had to “view[ ] the statistical evidence and

testimony through the proper lens of the standards applicable

to a class certification motion.” Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 155.

Though noting it would not decide the actual merits of the

claims, the court did “delve[ ] into the substance of the expert

testimony . . . to the extent necessary to determine if it [wa]s

sufficiently probative of an inference of discrimination to

create a common question as to the existence of a pattern and

practice of gender discrimination at Wal-Mart.” Id. This is the

precise inquiry that cases such as IPO have required, and it

clearly meets the standard we outline above, particularly

given the depth of the district court’s review, the evidentiary

posture of the case as a Title VII pattern and practice case,

and the underlying procedural standard where the district

court here was reviewing evidence under Rule 23(a)(2), to

raise a common question, rather than, like the cases Wal-Mart

cites, Rule 23(b)(3), to determine predominance. See Hnot,

241 F.R.D. at 210. 

In addition to formulating a review that complied with Falcon and our precedent, the district court, contrary to Wal6196 DUKES v. WAL-MART STORES

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Mart’s claims, did not improperly rely on out-of-circuit cases

the Second Circuit overruled in IPO. Specifically, Wal-Mart

cites Visa Check and Caridad as decisions IPO rejected, noting the district court’s supposed reliance on this reasoning

renders its decision error. As an initial matter, the district

court did not cite Visa Check at all. See Dukes, 222 F.R.D.

137 passim. While it did cite to Caridad, nothing about its

citation to Caridad was erroneous. 

The district court cited Caridad five times. Two instances

of this reliance can be immediately set aside as unproblematic

because they relied on Caridad’s holding that excessive subjectivity in corporate policies can contribute to a finding of

commonality. Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 149-50, 154. IPO neither

addressed nor overruled this holding in Caridad, and it still

remains “controlling authority” in the Second Circuit. Hnot,

241 F.R.D. at 210. A third citation to Caridad supported the

district court’s statement that, “although some inquiry into the

substance of a case may be necessary to ascertain satisfaction

of the commonality and typicality requirements of Rule 23(a),

it is improper to advance a decision on the merits to the class

certification stage.” Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 144 (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing Caridad, 191 F. 3d at 292). This

statement is entirely consistent with Falcon, our precedent,

and our ruling today. The two other citations to Caridad

equally show that the district court did not adopt the “some

showing” standard that the Second Circuit properly rejected.

Instead, the district court refused to consider the merits—it

would not conclusively find whether Wal-Mart had

discriminated—but it analyzed the evidence to the extent,

under Rule 23(a)(2), that it had to determine whether “there

are questions of law or fact common to the class.” Fed. R.

Civ. P. 23(a)(2); Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 143.29

29The district court’s other two citations to Caridad supported its statements that, first, “[d]efendant’s arguments seek to engage the Court in a

merits evaluation of the expert opinions. The Court rejects this approach,

and views the statistical evidence and testimony through the proper lens

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[16] Critically, the district court did not shy away from

issues overlapping with the merits; rather it devoted fifteen

pages of its opinion to probing the parties’ statistics. The district court merely refused to decide the underlying merits

themselves and examined evidence only to the extent necessary to satisfy itself under Rule 23(a)(2) that Plaintiffs raised

common questions. In doing so, it joined dozens of other district courts in this circuit that have engaged the proper analysis, all using different wording, but all probing behind the

pleadings to make determinations on the Rule 23 requirements. See, e.g., In re Cooper Cos. Sec. Litig., 254 F.R.D.

628, 641 n.7 (C.D. Cal. 2009); Bishop v. Petro-Chem.

Transp., LLC, 582 F. Supp. 2d 1290, 1305 (E.D. Cal. 2008);

Alexander v. JBC Legal Group, P.C., 237 F.R.D. 628, 629 (D.

Mont. 2006); Westways World Travel, Inc., 218 F.R.D. at

230. 

Turning to the factual assertions in Plaintiffs’ evidence, the

court made a preliminary determination, based on the following “largely uncontested” statistics: 

[W]omen working in Wal-Mart stores are paid less

than men in every region, that pay disparities exist

in most job categories, that the salary gap widens

over time even for men and women hired into the

of the standards applicable to a class certification motion.” Dukes, 222

F.R.D. at 155 & n. 21 (citing Caridad, 191 F.3d at 292). Second, “[t]he

ultimate question of whether subjective decision-making and a uniform

culture contribute to a nation-wide pattern of gender discrimination will,

of course, be for a jury to decide. At this stage, however, these factors are

apparent enough to support Dr. Drogin’s regional approach as at least a

reasonable means of conducting a statistical analysis.” Id. at 159 & n.29

(citing Caridad, 191 F.3d at 292-93). These are determinations of the type

we require for Rule 23(a)(2) certification. Though we have used different

language in clarifying the standard today, the district court examined the

evidence and made a determination, over Wal-Mart’s evidence, that Plaintiffs’ evidence raised questions of law or fact common to the class. That

is what Rule 23(a)(2), the Supreme Court, and we require. 

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same jobs at the same time, that women take longer

to enter into management positions, and that the

higher one looks in the organization the lower the

percentage of women. 

Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 155. Importantly, and as instructed by

Falcon, these factual determinations were arrived at after

looking beyond the pleadings to Plaintiffs’ expert’s deposition. Id.

Correctly noting that descriptive statistics do not address

causation, the district court then analyzed not the pleadings,

but Plaintiffs’ and Wal-Mart’s statistics, finding, “In short, all

of Dr. Drogin’s regressions show that gender is a statistically

significant variable in accounting for the salary differentials

between female class members and male employees at WalMart stores.” Id. at 156. 

The court specifically analyzed whether aggregation of statistics for regional units was proper or whether Wal-Mart was

correct to insist upon a store-level evaluation. The district

court first stated the relevant sub-standard: “The proper test of

whether workforce statistics should be viewed at the macro

(regional) or micro (store or sub-store) level depends largely

on the similarity of the employment practices, and the interchange of employees, at the various facilities.” Id. at 157

(citation omitted). It continued, “Dr. Drogin contends that it

is proper to conduct the analysis on a regional level because

the subjective decision-making in compensation and promotions takes place within parameters and guidelines that are

highly uniform . . . . Plaintiffs also have shown, as discussed

above, that the primary salary decision-makers, Store Managers, experience frequent relocation among the various stores.”

Id. at 157. 

[17] On appeal, Wal-Mart contends that the district court

erred by not finding Wal-Mart’s statistical evidence more persuasive than Plaintiffs’ evidence because, according to WalDUKES v. WAL-MART STORES 6199

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Mart, its analysis was conducted store-by-store. However,

contrary to Wal-Mart’s characterization of its analysis, and

the dissent’s concerns regarding statistical aggregation,30 WalMart’s own research was not conducted at the individual store

level. Dr. Joan Haworth, Wal-Mart’s expert, did not conduct

a store-by-store analysis; instead she reviewed data at the substore level by comparing departments to analyze the pay differential between male and female hourly employees.31 Moreover, our task here is to determine whether the district court

abused its discretion in finding that, based on all the evidence

presented, there existed common questions of fact sufficient

to justify class certification. See Gonzales v. Free Speech

Coal., 408 F.3d 613, 618 (9th Cir. 2005); Armstrong, 275

F.3d at 867. We are not to re-examine the relative strength or

30Contrary to the dissent’s characterization, the district court was cognizant of the possibility of aggregation problems in the data. Dukes, 222

F.R.D. at 155-59 & n.22. The dissent’s invocation of “Simpson’s Paradox” to discount Plaintiffs’ statistical evidence is not compelling, particularly at the class certification stage. See Dissent at 6253 n.12. First,

Simpson’s Paradox is a problem of incorrect causation inferences as much

as it is the result of an aggregation problem, see Judea Pearl, Causality:

Models, Reasoning, and Inference 130 (2000) (noting that the study the

dissent cites, while not “defective,” highlights “that no adjustment is guaranteed to give an unbiased estimate of causal effects, direct or indirect,

absent a careful examination of the causal assumptions that ensure identification”), and the district court considered potential problems and causation inferences in its discussion of the competing regression analyses. See

Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 155-56 & n.22. Second, at trial, Wal-Mart is free to

further argue the unpersuasiveness of Plaintiffs’ statistics, but lacking evidence showing a likelihood of a Simpson’s Paradox, and given the many

causal factors the statistical analyses addressed, see id.; Marios G. Pavlides & Michael D. Perlman, How Likely is a Simpson’s Paradox, 63 Am.

Statistician 226, 229-30 (2009), we find the district court properly considered Plaintiffs’ statistics probative after a rigorous analysis. See Falcon,

457 U.S. at 161; Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 156-59. 

31This means that Dr. Haworth ran separate regression analyses for: (1)

each of the specialty departments in the store, (2) each grocery department

in the store, and (3) the store’s remaining departments. She did not run

regression analyses to examine pay differential between male and female

salaried employees. 

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persuasiveness of the commonality evidence ourselves. Thus,

even if we were to find, based on an independent review of

the record, that Wal-Mart’s statistical evidence was more persuasive than Plaintiffs’—which we do not, in any event—this

alone would not allow us to find that the district court improperly relied on Dr. Drogin’s testimony as a valid component of

its commonality analysis or that the district court erred in its

ultimate conclusion that the commonality prerequisite was

satisfied. That the jury might later find Wal-Mart’s statistical

evidence more persuasive does not detract from the district

court’s determination, after extensive review, that Dr.

Drogin’s regional analysis raises common issues appropriate

for class adjudication. 

Here, again, the district court followed the Supreme Court’s

guidance to thoughtfully “probe behind the pleadings,” Falcon, 457 U.S. at 160, and did not abuse its discretion when it

relied on Dr. Drogin’s use and interpretation of statistical data

as a valid component of its determination that Plaintiffs raised

common questions. It considered Wal-Mart’s challenges to

Dr. Drogin’s statistics and made the specific determination

that “the Court is not persuaded that Dr. Drogin’s aggregated

statistical analysis should be rejected because he did not

choose to utilize the Chow test,” as Wal-Mart had urged.

Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 158. In other words, for the purposes of

class certification, the district court reasonably made the

determination to credit Plaintiffs’ statistics. 

Wal-Mart also claims the district court erred in determining

that Wal-Mart provided little or no proper legal or factual

challenge to Dr. Drogin’s analysis,32 and that, contrary to

Wal-Mart’s contention, Dr. Haworth’s Store Manager survey

evidence—which was stricken for failing to satisfy the stan32For example, Wal-Mart maintains that the district court erred by not

requiring Dr. Drogin to perform a “Chow test” to determine whether data

could be properly aggregated. We have not found a single case suggesting

or requiring use of such a test. 

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dards of Rules 702 and 703 of Evidence33 —did not undermine or contradict Dr. Drogin’s evidence. 

In rejecting the inclusion of Wal-Mart’s Store Manager surveys as a challenge to Dr. Drogin’s statistics because they

were not based on a scientifically valid reasoning or methodology, Dukes II, 222 F.R.D. at 197-98 (discussing Rules 702

and 703), see Daubert, 509 U.S. at 592-93, the court noted

that even if the evidence were included, “[t]he survey would

not provide sufficient additional weight to Defendant’s challenge to Dr. Drogin’s analysis to sway the Court from its conclusion that his testimony supports an inference of

discrimination, and thus the existence of substantial questions

common to the class,” Dukes II, 222 F.R.D. at 198 n.9

(emphasis added). In so ruling, the district court went even

further into the merits than necessary to make a reasoned, justifiable determination, after proper review under the correct

standard, that Plaintiffs’ claims were appropriate for class

adjudication due to common questions. 

Thus, because Dr. Drogin adequately explained, and the

district court rigorously analyzed, why his statistical method

best reflected the alleged discrimination, the court did not

abuse its discretion when it credited Dr. Drogin’s analysis of

statistical evidence of common discrimination questions. Nor

did the district court abuse its discretion when it concluded

33In addition to her sub-store analysis, Dr. Haworth conducted a survey

of store managers. After reviewing the survey and its methodology, the

district court concluded that the Store Manager survey was biased both

“on its face” and in the way that it was conducted. Dukes II, 222 F.R.D.

at 196-97 (noting that the survey’s results “are not the ‘product of reliable

principles and methods,’ and therefore are not the type of evidence that

would be ‘reasonably relied upon by experts’ ” (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 702,

703)). Dr. Haworth’s disaggregated analysis created pools too small to

yield any meaningful results. Wal-Mart has not appealed this issue.

Accordingly, this evidence is not properly before us. See Kohler v. InterTel Techs., 244 F.3d 1167, 1179 n.8 (9th Cir. 2001) (recognizing that the

appellant waived a claim by failing to raise it in her briefs). 

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that Dr. Drogin’s analysis supported Plaintiffs’ contention that

there is a common core of facts flowing from Wal-Mart’s corporate structure and policies that affects class members generally with regard to their discrimination claims. While

Plaintiffs and Wal-Mart disagree on whose findings are more

persuasive, the disagreement is not one of whether Plaintiffs

have asserted “common questions of law or fact.” Falcon, 457

U.S. at 157, 159. The disagreement is the common question,

and deciding which side has been more persuasive is an issue

for the next phase of the litigation. Requiring even more findings and further analysis from the district court would be to

force a trial on the merits at the certification stage. 

Finally, and discussed further below, the district court’s

review of statistics showing discrimination regarding promotions was also not an abuse of discretion. Plaintiffs and

Defendant disagree over whether Dr. Drogin’s analysis of

internal promotion data was proper. Specifically, both sides

agreed that Wal-Mart’s actual applicant flow data for promotions during the class period was limited and contained significant gaps. Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 162. Dr. Drogin’s statistics

estimated the applicant flow by “tabulating ‘the incumbents in

historical feeder jobs for each promotion.’ ” Id. Wal-Mart

argued that the data, “while limited, is nonetheless sufficient

to justify an extrapolation for all job openings during the

entire class period.” Id. 

The district court, addressing this statistical dispute, found

Plaintiffs’ statistics “sufficient to create an inference of discrimination.” Id. at 164. In doing so, the district court found

Dr. Drogin’s reasoning and methodology valid and applicable

in the case. While the court noted in passing that Dr. Drogin’s

statistics were “reasonable,” the court also, and more appropriately, stated that “it is well recognized that where actual

applicant flow data is inadequate or unavailable, other measures of applicant flow—including but not limited to “feeder

pools”—are deemed acceptable so long as they are used in a

reliable manner.” Id. at 162-63. In doing so the district court

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cited an evidence treatise, Ninth Circuit precedent, and a district court case that had accepted the same type of feeder pool

methodology in a dispute of the very same experts—Dr.

Drogin and Dr. Haworth. Id. at 163 & n.37 (citing Hemmings

v. Tidyman’s Inc., 285 F.3d 1174, 1185-86 (9th Cir. 2002); R.

Paetzold and S. Willborn, The Statistics of Discrimination

§§ 4.02-4.04 (2002); Stender v. Lucky Stores, Inc., 803 F.

Supp. 259, 333-34 (N.D. Cal. 1992)). 

Thus, properly considering Dr. Drogin’s statistics, the court

made a determination on the applicant pool data. It found that

“Defendant’s assertion that its approach is necessarily superior does not withstand scrutiny. Rather, Defendant’s arguments, which go to the weight of the evidence [i.e., the

persuasiveness on the merits], merely highlight the presence

of a significant issue affecting all class members which supports, rather than defeats, granting class certification.” Id. at

164. This determination was thus made after a rigorous analysis of the parties’ statistical claims. 

[18] In short, the district court stated the legal standard,

analyzed Plaintiffs’ and Wal-Mart’s competing claims to the

propriety of aggregating statistics on a regional level and

addressing Wal-Mart’s missing applicant flow data, noted

Plaintiffs have “shown” reasons to accept their statistics, dismissed Wal-Mart’s statistical challenges, demonstrated these

finding were supported by relevant Ninth Circuit precedent

(and an identical dispute involving the same two experts),

rejected Wal-Mart’s reliance on a district court case purportedly explaining why the sub-store statistical analysis was

proper, and, finally, determined that at the class certification

stage all of this analysis was sufficient to support Dr.

Drogin’s analysis and raise questions of law or fact common

to the class. This searching analysis was solid, well founded

and in no way an abuse of discretion. 

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(4) Anecdotal Evidence 

Circumstantial and anecdotal evidence of discrimination is

commonly used in Title VII “pattern and practice” cases to

bolster statistical proof by bringing “the cold numbers convincingly to life.” Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 339; see also Rudebusch v. Hughes, 313 F.3d 506, 517 (9th Cir. 2002). WalMart contends that the district court erred by concluding that

the anecdotal evidence, presented by Plaintiffs in the form of

sworn declarations, supported a finding of commonality.34

Wal-Mart maintains that the declarations depict a handful of

“widely divergent” events that cannot be deemed probative or

representative of discrimination in pay or management-track

promotions. 

In their declarations, the potential class members testified

to being paid less than similarly situated men, being denied or

delayed in receiving promotions in a disproportionate manner

when compared with similarly situated men, working in an

atmosphere with a strong corporate culture of discrimination,

and being subjected to various individual sexist acts. The district court credited this evidence. 

[19] Wal-Mart argues that 120 declarations cannot sufficiently represent a class of this size. However, we find no

authority requiring or even suggesting that a plaintiff class

submit a specific number of declarations for such evidence to

have any value. Moreover, the district court did not state that

this anecdotal evidence provided sufficient proof to establish

commonality by itself, but merely noted such evidence provides support for Plaintiffs’ contention that commonality is

present. See Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 166 (“This anecdotal evidence, in combination with the other evidence previously discussed, further supports an inference that [Wal-Mart’s]

34Plaintiffs submitted declarations from each of the class representatives, as well as 114 declarations from putative class members around the

country. See Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 165. 

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policies and procedures have the effect of discriminating

against Plaintiffs in a common manner.”).35 Because the combination of these declarations and Plaintiffs’ other evidence,

discussed below, raise an inference of common discriminatory

experiences, the district court did not abuse its discretion

when it considered Plaintiffs’ anecdotal evidence.36

Finally, in arguing against certification based on affidavits,

Plaintiffs’ personal allegations, statistics, and expert testimony, the dissent intersperses references of Falcon immediately with discussion of Cooper v. Federal Reserve Bank, 467

U.S. 867, 879 (1984), claiming “individual stories do not constitute significant proof that Wal-Mart has adopted a general

policy of discrimination or that such a policy prevails” at

Wal-Mart. Dissent at 6250. This criticism, and particularly its

temporary suspension of consideration of the statistical evidence, is indicative of the dissent’s repeated attempts to go

beyond the Supreme Court’s concern with the need for “more

35Of course, the district court made no finding that Plaintiffs’ anecdotal

declarations alone would raise an inference of common discriminatory

experiences. Therefore, contrary to the dissent’s mischaracterization of our

holding, Dissent at 6244-45, this case does not present the opportunity for

us to consider, let alone affirm, such a hypothetical finding. 

36The dissent’s accusation that both we and the district court are playing

the “proverbial shell game,” is unpersuasive given the weight of the evidence the district court considered. See Dissent at 6259. Not surprisingly,

the dissent’s implication that a single form of evidence must, by itself, be

able to support a commonality finding to satisfy the standard of significance set forth in Falcon, cites no authority for its proposition. Id. Even

under a preponderance of the evidence standard, see, e.g., Teamsters Local

445 Freight Div. Pension Fund v. Bombardier Inc., 546 F.3d 196, 202 (2d

Cir. 2008), the district court’s review here would have been sufficient,

finding Plaintiffs’ “evidence more than satisfies plaintiffs’ burden to demonstrate commonality under Rule 23(a)(2).” See Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 143,

145 (“The party seeking certification must provide facts sufficient to satisfy Rule 23(a) and (b) requirements. In turn, the district court must conduct a rigorous analysis to determine that the prerequisites of Rule 23 have

been met. If a court is not fully satisfied, certification should be refused.”

(citations omitted)). 

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precise pleadings” in class actions, Falcon, 457 U.S. at 160-

61 (citing Johnson, 417 F.2d at 1125), and the Court’s command that “sometimes it may be necessary for the court to

probe behind the pleadings before coming to rest on the certification question,” id. at 160, in an effort to reframe the question as one on whether Plaintiffs can actually succeed on the

merits. Cf. Eisen, 417 U.S. at 177-78 (explaining that the

plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits is not part of

deciding whether certification is proper). 

Contrary to the dissent’s proposed standard, Plaintiffs here

need not “establish a prima facie case” on the merits. Dissent

at 6263. Class certification in Cooper had already taken place

and, in fact, the case had gone through a trial. 467 U.S. at 872.

The decision for the Supreme Court was whether the class’s

loss at trial precluded a class member from maintaining his

own, separate civil action subsequent to the loss. Id. at 869.

This is an entirely different posture than the present case presents, and the standard for winning a claim under McDonnell

Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), is, of course,

different than that for certifying a class action. See Cooper,

467 U.S. at 875-76; Falcon, 457 U.S. at 160-61. 

b. Subjective Decision Making

As discussed above, the district court found substantial evidence suggesting common pay and promotion policies among

Wal-Mart’s many stores. See Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 148-51.

The court also reasoned that Wal-Mart’s decision to permit its

managers to utilize subjectivity in interpreting those policies

offers additional support for a commonality finding. See id.

Relying on Sperling v. Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc., 924 F. Supp.

1346 (D.N.J. 1996), Wal-Mart challenges the latter conclusion, contending that managers’ discretionary authority does

not support a finding of commonality because

“[d]ecentralized, discretionary decisionmaking is not inherently discriminatory.” 

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It is well established that subjective decision making is a

“ready mechanism[ ] for discrimination” and that courts

should scrutinize it carefully. Sengupta v. Morrison-Knudsen

Co., 804 F.2d 1072, 1075 (9th Cir. 1986) (internal quotation

marks omitted). Wal-Mart is correct that discretionary decision making by itself is insufficient to meet Plaintiffs’ burden.

The district court recognized this, noting that managerial discretion is but one of several factors that supported a finding

of commonality. See Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 149-50 (“And

while the presence of excessive subjectivity, alone, does not

necessarily create a common question of fact, where, as here,

such subjectivity is part of a consistent corporate policy and

supported by other evidence giving rise to an inference of discrimination, courts have not hesitated to find that commonality is satisfied.”). 

Wal-Mart is incorrect, however, that decentralized, subjective decision making cannot contribute to a common question

of fact regarding the existence of discrimination. See Falcon,

457 U.S. at 159 n.15. Indeed, courts from around the country

have found “[a]llegations of similar discriminatory employment practices, such as the use of entirely subjective personnel processes that operate to discriminate, [sufficient to]

satisfy the commonality and typicality requirements of Rule

23(a).” Shipes v. Trinity Indus., 987 F.2d 311, 316 (5th Cir.

1993); see also supra note 7 and cases cited therein. 

[20] Plaintiffs produced substantial evidence of WalMart’s centralized firm-wide culture and policies, see Dukes,

222 F.R.D. at 151-54, thus providing a nexus between the

subjective decision making and the considerable statistical

evidence demonstrating a pattern of lower pay and fewer promotions for female employees. See id. at 154-65; see also

Reid v. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., 205 F.R.D. 655,

670-72 (N.D. Ga. 2001) (subjective decision making may

give rise to an inference of discrimination where evidence

shows a nexus between decision making and discrimination).

Therefore, for the reasons stated above, there was no abuse of

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discretion in determining that Wal-Mart’s subjective decisionmaking policy provides support for Plaintiffs’ contention that

commonality exists among potential class members. 

c. Commonality Conclusion

[21] The district court’s analysis of Rule 23(a)(2) complies

with the standard the Supreme Court has set down and we

have explained today for a district court adjudicating a motion

for class certification. Plaintiffs’ factual evidence, expert

opinions, statistical evidence, and anecdotal evidence provide

sufficient support to raise the common question whether WalMart’s female employees nationwide were subjected to a single set of corporate policies (not merely a number of independent discriminatory acts) that may have worked to unlawfully

discriminate against them in violation of Title VII. Evidence

of Wal-Mart’s subjective decision-making policies suggests a

common legal or factual question regarding whether WalMart’s policies or practices are discriminatory. Many other

courts have reached the same conclusion based on similar evidence. See, e.g., Staton, 327 F.3d at 955; Shipes, 987 F.2d at

316; Cox v. Am. Cast Iron Pipe Co., 784 F.2d 1546, 1557

(11th Cir. 1986); Segar v. Smith, 738 F.2d 1249, 1276 (D.C.

Cir. 1984).

3. Typicality

As an initial matter, Plaintiffs contend that Wal-Mart has

waived a challenge to the district court’s typicality finding by

failing to offer specific objections to the district court’s typicality determination. However, because Wal-Mart refers,

somewhat obliquely, to the typicality factor in its opening

brief and because typicality and commonality are similar and

tend to merge, see Falcon, 457 at 157 n.13,37 we conclude that

37Although the “commonality and typicality requirements of Rule 23(a)

tend to merge,” see Falcon, 457 U.S. at 157 n.13, each factor serves a discrete purpose. Commonality examines the relationship of facts and legal

issues common to class members, while typicality focuses on the relationship of facts and issues between the class and its representatives. See Newberg on Class Actions § 3:13, at 317. 

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Wal-Mart did not waive its opportunity to challenge the district court’s findings with regard to typicality. 

Thus, although Wal-Mart did not raise a specific challenge,

it nevertheless raised a general objection to the district court’s

conclusion that Plaintiffs’ evidence satisfies the typicality

requirement. As discussed below, to satisfy the typicality prerequisite, Plaintiffs must demonstrate that their claims and

their class representatives are sufficiently typical of the class.

a. Plaintiffs’ Claims Are Sufficiently Typical

Rule 23(a)(3) requires that “the claims or defenses of the

representative parties are typical of the claims or defenses of

the class.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(3). We stated in Hanlon that,

“[u]nder the rule’s permissive standards, representative claims

are ‘typical’ if they are reasonably coextensive with those of

absent class members; they need not be substantially identical.” 150 F.3d at 1020; see also Staton, 327 F.3d at 957 (stating that “a class representative [from each job category] for

each type of discrimination claim alleged . . . is not necessary”). 

Thus, we must consider whether the injury allegedly suffered by the named plaintiffs and the rest of the class resulted

from the same allegedly discriminatory practice. See Staton,

327 F.3d at 957. Even though individual employees in different stores with different managers may have received different levels of pay or may have been denied promotion or

promoted at different rates, because the discrimination they

claim to have suffered occurred through alleged common

practices—e.g., excessively subjective decision making in a

corporate culture of uniformity and gender stereotyping—the

district court did not abuse its discretion by finding that their

claims are sufficiently typical to satisfy Rule 23(a)(3).

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b. Plaintiffs’ Representatives Are Sufficiently Typical

of the Class

Typicality requires that the named plaintiffs be members of

the class they represent. See Falcon, 457 U.S. at 156. There

is no dispute that the class representatives are “typical” of the

hourly class members, because almost all of the class representatives hold hourly positions. Instead, Wal-Mart contends

that the class representatives are not typical of all female instore managers because only one of the class representatives

holds a salaried management position, and she holds a somewhat low-level position. 

However, because all female employees faced the same

alleged discrimination, the lack of a class representative for

each management category does not undermine Plaintiffs’

certification goal. See Hartman v. Duffey, 19 F.3d 1459, 1471

(D.C. Cir. 1994) (An employee can challenge discrimination

in “different job categories where the primary practices used

to discriminate in the different categories are themselves similar. While it may be prudent to have the class divided into

sub-classes represented by a named plaintiff from each of the

differing job categories, it would not be necessary to the

validity of the class certification to do so.”); Paxton v. Union

Nat’l Bank, 688 F.2d 552, 562 (8th Cir. 1982) (“Typicality is

not defeated because of the varied promotional opportunities

at issue, or the differing qualifications of the plaintiffs and

class members.”).

In addition, because the range of managers in the proposed

class is limited to managers working in Wal-Mart’s stores and

excludes those at regional or national offices, it is not an

excessively diverse class; a named plaintiff occupying a

lower-level, salaried, in-store management position is sufficient to satisfy the “permissive” typicality requirement. Staton, 327 F.3d at 957 (recognizing that, “ ‘[u]nder the rule’s

permissive standards,’ ” plaintiffs are not required to offer a

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class representative for each type of discrimination claim

alleged (quoting Hanlon, 150 F.3d at 1020)).

[22] Because Plaintiffs’ claims and Plaintiffs’ representatives are sufficiently typical of the class, the district court

acted within its discretion when it found that Plaintiffs satisfied the typicality prerequisite. 

4. Adequate Representation

Rule 23(a)(4) permits certification of a class action only if

“the representative parties will fairly and adequately protect

the interests of the class.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a)(4). This factor

requires: (1) that the proposed representative Plaintiffs do not

have conflicts of interest with the proposed class, and (2) that

Plaintiffs are represented by qualified and competent counsel.

See Hanlon, 150 F.3d at 1020; see also Molski v. Gleich, 318

F.3d 937, 955 (9th Cir. 2003). 

Before the district court, Wal-Mart argued that Plaintiffs

cannot satisfy this factor because of a conflict of interest

between female in-store managers who are both plaintiff class

members and decision-making agents of Wal-Mart. Relying

on Staton, the district court recognized that courts need not

deny certification of an employment class simply because the

class includes both supervisory and non-supervisory employees. See Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 168; see also Staton, 327 F.3d

at 958-59. This decision was not an abuse of discretion.

Finally, because Wal-Mart does not challenge the district

court’s finding that Plaintiffs’ class representatives and counsel are adequate, we need not analyze this factor. 

5. Commonality, Typicality, and Manageability of

Promotion Claims

The district court certified Plaintiffs’ promotion claims for

injunctive and declaratory relief and punitive damages, but

concluded that “manageability concerns” required that “any

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lost pay remedy on Plaintiffs’ promotion claim would be limited to that subset of the class for whom objective applicant

data exists.” Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 183. Wal-Mart objects to

the certification of Plaintiffs’ promotion claims, even with

this limitation, on commonality and manageability grounds.

Plaintiffs, on the other hand, object to the district court’s limitation of eligibility for back pay to positions for which objective applicant data exist. 

[23] Title VII pattern and practice class actions frequently

include both salary and promotion claims. See, e.g., Bazemore

v. Friday, 478 U.S. 385, 406 (1986) (per curiam); Cooper,

467 U.S. at 870. As discussed above, the district court found

that Plaintiffs here have provided evidence sufficient to support their contention that company-wide corporate practices

and policies—including excessive subjectivity in personnel

decisions, gender stereotyping, and maintenance of a strong

corporate culture—affected both compensation and promotion

of all Plaintiffs in a common manner. Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at

166. Although there may be some variation among individual

promotion decisions, variation does not prevent class certification of common issues of fact. See Hanlon, 150 F.3d at

1019 (“Rule 23(a)(2) has been construed permissively. All

questions of fact and law need not be common to satisfy the

rule.”). Given its findings regarding Wal-Mart’s companywide promotion policies and minimum guidelines, see Dukes,

222 F.R.D. at 148-49, the district court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that there was a sufficient common factual basis among putative class members’ promotion claims to

satisfy Rule 23(a)(2). 

[24] We also affirm the district court’s conclusion that a

back pay remedy for promotion claims would be manageable

only “with respect to those positions for which objective

applicant data is available to document class member interest.” Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 183. Wal-Mart’s extensive database containing information on each employee individually

with respect to job history, seniority, job review ratings, and

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many other factors, see id. at 183-85, would enable a determination of each class member’s qualifications for promotion

without the need for potentially unmanageable individualized

hearings. The district court did not abuse its discretion by limiting eligibility for back pay, however, because allowing class

members to demonstrate post hoc their previous interest in

promotions might indeed be unmanageable. See id. at 181-82.

6. Rule 23(a) Conclusion

[25] Based on the evidence before the district court, which

it rigorously analyzed pursuant to Falcon, 457 U.S. at 161,

and the standard herein described, the district court did not

abuse its discretion when it found that the Rule 23(a) elements

were satisfied.

B. Rule 23(b)

As mentioned earlier, Plaintiffs moved to certify the class

under Rule 23(b)(2), which requires showing that “the party

opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds that

apply generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief . . .

is appropriate respecting the class as a whole.” Fed. R. Civ.

P. 23(b)(2).38 The district court agreed with Plaintiffs. See

Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 170-71. Wal-Mart argues the district

court merely “paid lip service” to Rule 23(b)(2) and erred in

certifying the class under Rule 23(b)(2) because claims for

monetary relief predominate over claims for injunctive and

declaratory relief. 

[26] Rule 23(b)(2) is not appropriate for all classes and

“does not extend to cases in which the appropriate final relief

relates exclusively or predominantly to money damages.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2) advisory committee’s note to 1966

amends., 39 F.R.D. 69, 102; see also Zinser, 253 F.3d at 1195

38The purported class need only satisfy one of Rule 23(b)’s prongs to

be sustainable. See Zinser, 253 F.3d at 1186. 

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(“Class certification under Rule 23(b)(2) is appropriate only

where the primary relief sought is declaratory or injunctive.”).

An interpretation of Rule 23(b)(2) that prevented any claim

for monetary relief would render this advisory committee

requirement redundant or irrelevant. 

We first turn to the appropriate standard for determining

when monetary relief “predominates” over declaratory and

injunctive relief and therefore precludes certification of a Rule

23(b)(2) class. We have previously joined the Second Circuit

in adopting a test that focuses on the plaintiffs’ subjective

intent in bringing a lawsuit. See Molski, 318 F.3d at 950; Robinson v. Metro-North Commuter R.R. Co., 267 F.3d 147, 164

(2d Cir. 2001). In contrast, several other circuits use the “incidental damages standard” that was first enunciated by the

Fifth Circuit in Allison v. Citgo Petroleum Corp., 151 F.3d

402, 415-16 (5th Cir. 1998). See, e.g., Reeb v. Ohio Dep’t of

Rehab. & Corr., 435 F.3d 639, 646-51 (6th Cir. 2006); Murray v. Auslander, 244 F.3d 807, 812 (11th Cir. 2001); Lemon

v. Int’l Union of Operating Eng’rs Local No. 139, 216 F.3d

577, 580-81 (7th Cir. 2000). Under the Allison approach,

monetary relief predominates over other forms of relief “unless it is incidental to requested injunctive or declaratory

relief.” See Allison, 151 F.3d at 415. 

We see no need to employ either approach, which are both,

essentially, glosses on the text of the Advisory Committee’s

Note’s statement that Rule 23(b)(2) “does not extend to cases

in which the appropriate final relief relates exclusively or predominantly to money damages.” Merriam-Webster defines

“predominant” as “having superior strength, influence, or

authority: prevailing.” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 978 (11th ed. 2004). To be certified under Rule 23(b)(2),

therefore, a class must seek only monetary damages that are

not “superior [in] strength, influence, or authority” to injunctive and declaratory relief. 

An analysis of a plaintiff’s subjective intent in bringing a

suit, as required by the standard set forth in Molski, is, at best,

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an incomplete method for answering this question. By

eschewing consideration of the practical impact of a request

for monetary relief on the litigation itself, the sole emphasis

on the plaintiff’s intent ignores important indicators of the

“strength, influence, [and] authority” of a request for specific

monetary relief. In short, Molski’s focus on subjective intent

and its concomitant failure to consider the pragmatic impact

of a request for monetary relief render it fatally flawed. 

The Molski approach is troubling for the additional reason

that it requires courts to engage in a nebulous and imprecise

inquiry into the plaintiffs’ intent in bringing a particular suit.

Only in those cases in which a request for injunctive relief is

obviously a ruse will this inquiry provide a clear answer.

More often than not, we suspect that the answer will be equivocal and, therefore, essentially an entirely discretionary one.

Although the standard set forth in Allison is an objective

one that does consider the practical effect of a request for

monetary damages, it suffers from a different deficiency. By

requiring monetary relief to be no more than “incidental” to

injunctive or declaratory relief, the Allison approach is in

direct conflict with the text of the Advisory Committee’s

Note, which forbids certification under Rule 23(b)(2) if monetary relief is the “predominant” form of relief. See 151 F.3d

at 412-16. “Predominant” is not synonymous with “more than

incidental.” As a result, the Allison approach would preclude

the certification of some Rule 23(b)(2) classes that the

drafters of the Rules intended to allow.

Allison’s standard also “usurps the district courts’ authority

granted by Rule 23 . . . to rigorously analyze the case, probe

behind the pleadings if necessary, and exercise its own discretion within the framework of the rules in determining whether

the action is to be so maintained.” Id. at 431 (Dennis, J., dissenting); see also Robinson, 267 F.3d at 165 (describing Allison’s incidental damages test as a “one-size-fits-all

approach”). Such a limitation is in direct conflict with the

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Federal Rules’ intention that district courts be afforded discretion. The predominance test suggested by the Advisory Committee’s Note, by contrast, is consistent with the wide

discretion given to district courts in making the class certification decision and accomplishing Title VII’s remedial objectives. 

[27] To the extent Molski required the district court to

inquire only into the intent of the plaintiffs and focus primarily on determining whether reasonable plaintiffs would bring

suit to obtain injunctive or declaratory relief even in the

absence of a possible monetary recovery, see Molski, 318

F.3d at 950 & n.15, it is overruled. In light of the inadequacy

of both the Allison and Molski approaches, we adopt instead

the standard that Rule 23(b)(2)’s drafters straightforwardly

indicated: Rule 23(b)(2) certification is not appropriate where

monetary relief is “predominant” over injunctive relief or

declaratory relief. To determine whether monetary relief predominates, a district court should consider, on a case-by-case

basis, the objective “effect of the relief sought” on the litigation. See Allison, 416 F.3d at 416. Factors such as whether the

monetary relief sought determines the key procedures that

will be used, whether it introduces new and significant legal

and factual issues, whether it requires individualized hearings,

and whether its size and nature—as measured by recovery per

class member—raise particular due process and manageability

concerns would all be relevant, though no single factor would

be determinative. 

[28] Under this standard, as discussed more fully below,

the district court’s decision to include claims for back pay in

a class certified under Rule 23(b)(2) was not an abuse of its

discretion. On the other hand, the district court did abuse its

discretion by failing to analyze whether certifying Plaintiffs’

punitive damages claims under Rule 23(b)(2) caused monetary damages to predominate, notwithstanding its decision to

require notice and an opportunity for Plaintiffs to opt-out of

the punitive damages claims.

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1. Wal-Mart’s Evidence Does Not Undermine

Plaintiffs’ Claim That Injunctive and Declaratory Relief Predominate

Wal-Mart first asserts that the district court “failed to even

evaluate” Rule 23(b)’s requirement that the challenged conduct be generally applicable to the class. Wal-Mart’s contention that its “unrebutted” statistics demonstrate that there is no

evidence of pervasive discrimination that would justify

injunctive relief and that, therefore, the “challenged conduct”

does not affect all members, is simply not persuasive. As

explained above, Wal-Mart’s evidence was rebutted by Plaintiffs to the extent that Plaintiffs’ evidence and theories remain

viable at this pre-merits analysis stage. Further, the issue

before us is whether monetary relief predominates, not

whether Plaintiffs will ultimately prevail. 

2. The Large Size of the Class Does Not Undermine Plaintiffs’ Claim That Injunctive and

Declaratory Relief Predominate

Wal-Mart contends that monetary claims necessarily predominate because this case involves claims that may amount

to billions of dollars. However, such a large amount is principally a function of Wal-Mart’s size, and the predominance

test turns on the primary goal and nature of the litigation—not

the theoretical or possible size of the total damages award. A

comparison between the amount of monetary damages available for each plaintiff and the importance of injunctive and

declaratory relief for each is far more relevant to establishing

predominance than the total size of a potential monetary

award for the class as a whole. As the district court stated,

“focusing on the potential size of a punitive damage award

would have the perverse effect of making it more difficult to

certify a class the more egregious the defendant’s conduct or

the larger the defendant. Such a result hardly squares with the

remedial purposes of Title VII.” Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 171.

Because Wal-Mart has not shown that the size of the mone6218 DUKES v. WAL-MART STORES

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tary request undermines Plaintiffs’ claim that injunctive and

declaratory relief predominate, we find that Wal-Mart’s argument fails.

3. Request for Back Pay Does Not Undermine

Plaintiffs’ Claim That Injunctive and Declaratory

Relief Predominate

Wal-Mart asserts that Plaintiffs’ request for back pay

weighs against certification because it proves that claims for

monetary relief predominate. The district court reasoned that

back pay “is recoverable as an equitable, make-whole remedy

in employment class actions notwithstanding its monetary

nature.” Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 170. Wal-Mart contends that

the district court erred by failing to recognize that back pay,

whether “equitable” or not, is still a form of monetary relief.

Wal-Mart’s argument is without merit. Although the circuits have adopted different tests for determining when monetary relief predominates, every circuit to have addressed the

issue has acknowledged that Rule 23(b)(2) does allow for

some claims for monetary relief.39 More to the point, it is

equally well accepted, even by circuits that are generally

restrictive in certifying classes seeking monetary damages

under Rule 23(b)(2), that a request for back pay in a Title VII

case is fully compatible with the certification of a Rule

39See, e.g., Thorn v. Jefferson-Pilot Life Ins. Co., 445 F.3d 311, 331 (4th

Cir. 2006) (awards of back pay do not predominate over the injunctive

remedies because their calculation generally involves relatively uncomplicated factual determinations); In re Monumental Life Ins. Co., 365 F.3d

408, 418 (5th Cir. 2004) (same); Cooper v. S. Co., 390 F.3d 695, 720 (11th

Cir. 2004), overruled on other grounds by Ash v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 546

U.S. 454, 457-58 (2006) (noting that back pay can be awarded in a case

certified under Rule 23(b)(2)); see also Reeb, 435 F.3d at 650 (same);

Coleman v. GMAC, 296 F.3d 443, 449 (6th Cir. 2002) (same); Robinson,

267 F.3d at 164 (holding compensatory or punitive damages sometimes

permissible under Rule 23(b)(2)); Thomas v. Albright, 139 F.3d 227 (D.C.

Cir. 1998) (upholding a settlement in which claims for compensatory damages were included in a class certified under Rule 23(b)(2)). 

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23(b)(2) class. See, e.g., Allison, 151 F.3d at 415; see also

Thorn, 445 F.3d at 331; Cooper, 390 F.3d at 720; Coleman,

296 F.3d at 449. As the Fifth Circuit stated in Allison, “final

injunctive relief [was] appropriate and the defendant’s liability for back pay [was] rooted in grounds applicable to all

members of the defined class. Under these circumstances the

award of back pay, as one element of the equitable remedy,

conflicts in no way with the limitations of Rule 23(b)(2).” 151

F.3d at 415 (internal quotation marks omitted).40

Courts have provided two justifications for the conclusion

that a request for back pay is consistent with certification

under Rule 23(b)(2). First, appellate courts have noted that,

“in the Title VII context, awards of backpay do not predominate over the injunctive remedies available because the ‘calculation of back pay generally involves [relatively

un]complicated factual determinations and few[ ] individualized issues.’ ” Thorn, 445 F.3d at 331-32 (alterations in original) (quoting Coleman, 296 F.3d at 449). The second rationale

is that back pay is “an integral component of Title VII’s

‘make whole’ remedial scheme,” see Allison, 151 F.3d at 415,

a scheme to which the drafters of the Federal Rules of Civil

40Athough some circuits have held that a request for back pay technically weighs on the monetary side of the scale, even though it is also an

equitable form of relief, none has held that this prevents requests for back

pay from being certified under Rule 23(b)(2). See, e.g., Thorn, 445 F.3d

at 3332 (“Rule 23(b)(2) class certification is proper in the Title VII context

not because backpay is an equitable form of relief, but because injunctive

or declaratory relief predominates despite the presence of a request for

back pay.”); Eubanks v. Billington, 110 F.3d 87, 95 (D.C. Cir. 1997); see

also In re Monumental Life Ins. Co., 365 F.3d at 418 (“[E]quitable monetary remedies are less likely to predominate over a class’s claim for

injunctive relief, but this has more to do with the uniform character of the

relief rather than with its label.”). 

We need not decide whether to adopt the view that a request for equitable relief such as back pay weighs against certification because here, even

assuming without deciding that it does, Plaintiffs’ request for back pay

does not predominate over their request for the injunctive and declaratory

relief and therefore does not prevent certification under Rule 23(b)(2). 

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Procedure clearly intended Rule 23(b)(2) to apply. Fed. R.

Civ. P. 23(b)(2) advisory committee’s note to 1966 amends.,

39 F.R.D. at 102 (stating that the principal category of cases

certifiable under Rule 23(b)(2) are “actions in the civil-rights

field where a party is charged with discriminating unlawfully

against a class”). 

We find this reasoning persuasive and therefore join the

consensus view that a request for back pay in a Title VII case

is fully consistent with the certification of a Rule 23(b)(2)

class action.41 Accordingly, we hold that the district court did

41The dissent claims that “the majority misses the point” in citing Coleman for the Sixth Circuit’s statement “that back pay is a permissible remedy in a Rule 23(b)(2) class,” 296 F.3d at 449, because “the issue is not

that plaintiffs seek back pay,” but whether “individualized treatment

makes class-wide relief improper.” Dissent at 6275 n.28. While it is true

that the Sixth Circuit rejected certification of the class in Coleman, it did

so by distinguishing the plaintiff’s claim for back pay and compensatory

damages from previous cases that upheld certification of a class under

Rule 23(b)(2) that sought back pay but not compensatory damages. Id. at

449 (“[C]alculation of back pay generally involves less complicated factual determinations and fewer individualized issues.”). Further, the Coleman court took issue with the plaintiff’s own calculations of compensatory

damages, which she sought to calculate “by reference to the markup [on

a car loan] charged to each individual member of the class.” Id. Given that

Plaintiffs here are not seeking compensatory damages, and that, unlike

here, there was no way in Coleman to calculate damages other than an

individualized framework that, in fact, the plaintiff proposed, we find

Coleman instructive for its statement “that back pay is a permissible remedy in a Rule 23(b)(2) class.” Id. (citing Alexander v. Aero Lodge No. 735,

565 F.2d 1364, 1372 (6th Cir. 1977) (“A request for back pay does not

preclude certification under [23(b)(2)].”)) 

The dissent’s claim of error is equally misguided to Thorn where the

concern with individualized inquiries related to the subjective state of

mind requirement for the Fourth Circuit’s accrual rule for a statute of limitations. See Thorn, 445 F.3d at 317, 320. The Fourth Circuit addressed an

earlier ruling in apparent conflict by explaining the previous case had dealt

with constructive notice and was thus amenable to class resolution, but

under the subjective, actual notice claim presented in Thorn there was no

way around individualized inquiries. Id. at 325. Here, back pay and other

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not abuse its discretion when it concluded, like many courts

before it, that this discrimination class action was certifiable

under Rule 23(b)(2) notwithstanding Plaintiffs’ prayer for

back pay relief. 

4. Monetary Relief May Predominate With

Respect to Plaintiffs’ Bifurcated Punitive Damages Claims

In determining whether “appropriate final relief relates

exclusively or predominantly to money damages,” Fed. R.

Civ. P. 23(b)(2), advisory committee’s note to 1996 amends.,

39 F.R.D. at 102, claims for punitive damages weigh against

certification under Rule 23(b)(2) because punitive damages

are, of course, neither injunctive nor declaratory relief. The

view that punitive damages can never be awarded consistent

with Rule 23(b)(2), however, has not been adopted by this circuit.42 On the other hand, this court also has not approved

claims can be calculated on a class-wide basis, and because this is a pattern and practice case, discrimination must be shown at a group level. See

Domingo v. New England Fish Co., 727 F.2d 1429, 1444 (9th Cir. 1984)

(per curiam); infra notes 49 and 53. Further, the Thorn court, in discussing

Title VII cases, stated that “in the Title VII context, awards of back pay

do not predominate over the injunctive remedies available because the calculation of back pay generally involves relatively uncomplicated factual

determinations and few individualized issues . . . . Rule 23(b)(2) class certification is proper in the Title VII context not because back pay is an

equitable form of relief, but because injunctive or declaratory relief predominates despite the presence of a request for back pay.” Thorn, 445

F.3d at 331-32 (brackets, citation, and internal quotation marks omitted).

Again, given these statements and distinguishing contexts, we find Thorn

supportive of our conclusion that a request for back pay in a Title VII case

is fully consistent with the certification of a Rule 23(b)(2) class action. 

42Neither Williams v. Owens-Illinois, Inc., 665 F.2d 918, 928-29 (9th

Cir. 1982), nor Zinser, 253 F.3d at 1195-96, supports Wal-Mart’s argument that this circuit will not certify a class action that involves punitive

damages. Rather, this court merely held that it was not an abuse of discretion to deny class certification based on the specific facts presented in

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class certification under Rule 23(b)(2) involving the potential

for substantial punitive damages. 

To decide whether certification under Rule 23(b)(2) is

appropriate, per the standard described in Part II, a district

court must squarely face and resolve the question of whether

the monetary damages sought by the plaintiff class predominate over the injunctive and declaratory relief. If so, then the

court may either deny certification under Rule 23(b)(2) or

bifurcate the proceedings by certifying a Rule 23(b)(2) class

for equitable relief and a separate Rule 23(b)(3) class for damages. See Molski, 318 F.3d at 951 n.16 (citing Jefferson v.

Ingersoll Int’l Inc., 195 F.3d 894, 897-98 (7th Cir. 1999)).43

Here, the district court certified Plaintiffs’ punitive damages claims as a separate class, but did so under Rule 23(b)(2)

rather than Rule 23(b)(3), exercising its discretion to impose

additional requirements for notice and the opportunity to optout of this separate Rule 23(b)(2) class. See Dukes, 222

F.R.D. at 173 (“[N]otice and the opportunity to opt-out can be

provided in a (b)(2) class action” and “shall be provided to the

plaintiff class with respect to Plaintiffs’ claim for punitive

damages.”). As the district court noted, its discretion to

require notice and the opportunity to opt-out in a Rule

those cases. See Williams, 665 F.2d at 929 (holding that damages requests

were not incidental to the request for injunctive relief where requested

compensatory damages were not clearly compatible with class injunctive

relief); Zinser, 253 F.3d at 1195-96 (same, holding that a request for medical monitoring against manufacturer of pacemaker is not certifiable under

Rule 23(b)(2) in the specific circumstances of the case, where the class

primarily sought establishment of a reserve fund for past and future damages, compensation for future medical treatment, and other compensatory

and punitive damages). 

43Relying on Rule 23(c)(4), our own precedent also generally allows

class treatment of common issues even when not all issues may be treated

on a class basis. See Valentino v. Carter-Wallace, Inc., 97 F.3d 1227, 1234

(9th Cir. 1996); see also Augustin v. Jablonsky (In re Nassau County Strip

Search Cases), 461 F.3d 219, 226 (2d Cir. 2006) (same). 

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23(b)(2) class action is well established. Id. (citing In re Monumental Life Ins. Co., 365 F.3d at 417; Molski, 318 F.3d at

951 n.16; Robinson, 267 F.3d at 165-67; Jefferson, 195 F.3d

at 898-99).44

Notwithstanding its decision to require notice and an

opportunity for opt-out, the district court abused its discretion

by certifying the punitive damages claims under Rule 23(b)(2)

without first undertaking an analysis of whether certification

of the claim for punitive damages (in addition to injunctive

and declaratory relief as well as back pay) rendered the final

relief “predominantly” related to monetary damages. See Fed.

R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2), advisory committee’s note to 1996

amends., 39 F.R.D. at 102. Although notice and an opportunity for Plaintiffs to opt-out of the punitive damages claims

alleviated some of the concerns regarding cohesiveness and

due process that substantial punitive damages claims potentially raise, requiring these procedures does not remove the

district court’s obligation to determine whether each of the

requirements of certification under either Rule 23(b)(2) or

(b)(3) is met.

[29] On remand, the district court must determine whether

certification under Rule 23(b)(2) of the punitive damages

claims would cause monetary relief to predominate. As discussed above, the district court should not limit its inquiry to

the former Molski factors, but should also consider any other

factors relevant to whether monetary relief predominates

44The dissent argues that Ticor Title Insurance Co. v. Brown, 511 U.S.

117 (1994) (per curiam), precludes district courts from granting notice and

opt-out rights in class actions certified under Rule 23(b)(2). Dissent at

6270-71. Ticor involved the res judicata effect of a prior case certified

under Rule 23(b)(2) without an opportunity for opt-out, so the Court’s

attention, quite understandably, was not focused on the extent of the district court’s discretion to provide for such measures. Ticor’s reference to

typical Rule 23(b)(2) procedures also was contained in an order dismissing

a grant of certiorari and therefore was not even dictum, let alone a holding.

See id.

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when determining if certification under Rule 23(b)(2) is appropriate.45 We note at least four factors present in this case that

are relevant to the question whether monetary relief predominates, but the district court need not limit its inquiry to these

factors alone. 

First, the inclusion of a punitive damages request means

that the key issue in this case, Wal-Mart’s liability, will be

decided by a jury, rather than a judge. This significant procedural change weighs in favor of finding that monetary relief

would predominate if the punitive damages claims are certified, although it is not dispositive.46

Second, Plaintiffs’ request for punitive damages introduces

a new and substantial factual issue. To recover punitive damages, Plaintiffs must show not only that Wal-Mart engaged in

a pattern or practice of discrimination, but also that it did so

“with malice or with reckless indifference to the federally

protected rights of” Plaintiffs. 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(1). This

additional factual question will likely require the Plaintiffs to

introduce significant evidence and legal argument that would

not have otherwise been necessary; the need for such extra

evidence and argument weighs in favor of a finding that monetary relief predominates. 

Third, the size of a potential punitive damages award, measured on an individual basis, could be quite significant. Title

VII permits a punitive damage award of up to $300,000 per

employee. See id. § 1981a(b)(3). Such a large potential award

raises due process and manageability concerns. Although the

45The dissent largely ignores the limits herein imposed on the district

court’s certification order, particularly regarding the mode of proof

described below. Dissent at 6271, 6277-78. 

46We do not mean to suggest that the issue of Wal-Mart’s liability could

not ultimately be decided by a jury. If the district court concludes that the

punitive damages class can be certified as a Rule 23(b)(3) class and adopts

a hybrid approach, then a jury would have to decide the liability issue for

both the Rule 23(b)(2) and the (b)(3) class. 

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district court’s decision to provide notice and opt-out to class

members alleviates some of these concerns, the size of the

potential award per class member in this case militates in

favor of a finding that monetary relief predominates, triggering the need for other safeguards applicable when a class is

certified under Rule 23(b)(3), rather than Rule 23(b)(2). 

Finally, we note that, unlike in other punitive and compensatory damages cases, this case does not require individualized punitive damages determinations. Plaintiffs’ theory of

liability is a class-wide theory that is based on a company policy that allegedly affects all class members in a similar way.

See Allison, 151 F.3d at 417 (leaving open the possibility that

a punitive damage class could be certified under 23(b)(2)

where the “plaintiffs challenge broad policies and practices”

and “contend that each plaintiff was affected by th[o]se

polices and practices in the same way”). While this factor

counsels against a finding that punitive damages predominate,

it also is not necessarily dispositive. 

In sum, we hold that the district court abused its discretion

when it certified a Rule 23(b)(2) class including punitive

damages without first undertaking a comprehensive analysis

of whether the inclusion of such damages in this case causes

monetary relief to predominate. To allow for further pertinent

fact-finding, we remand the certification of the bifurcated

punitive damages claims to the district court to consider

whether certification is proper under Rule 23(b)(2). We

decline to prejudge the outcome of this determination because

the question of whether monetary relief predominates should

be answered by the district court in the first instance, consistent with the Federal Rules’ intention to vest district courts

with significant discretion. 

[30] If the district court concludes that the punitive damage

class in this action cannot be certified under Rule 23(b)(2), it

should also consider whether class certification of the punitive

damages claims is appropriate under Rule 23(b)(3). We and

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a number of other courts of appeals have endorsed such “hybrid certification” of Rule 23(b)(2) and Rule 23(b)(3) classes

in one action, particularly in civil rights cases that may

involve significant monetary damages. See, e.g., Molski, 318

F.3d at 951 n.16; Jefferson, 195 F.3d at 898; Eubanks, 110

F.3d at 96. 

Under this hybrid approach, the highly cohesive Rule

23(b)(2) phase of the proceedings, including liability, can be

adjudicated without the costly class notice and opt-out process

required under Rule 23(b)(3). In order to protect the due process interests of absent class members, however, notice and

opt-out is required for the Rule 23(b)(3) punitive damages

proceedings. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(c)(2), advisory committee’s note to 2003 amends. (“If a Rule 23(b)(3) class is certified in conjunction with a (b)(2) class, the (c)(2)(B) notice

requirements must be satisfied as to the (b)(3) class.” (emphasis added)); Eubanks, 110 F.3d at 96 (“[Hybrid certification]

effectively grant[s] (b)(3) protections . . . at the monetary

relief stage.”); Diaz v. Hillsborough County Hosp. Auth., 165

F.R.D. 689, 695 (M.D. Fla. 1996) (explaining that in Stage I,

the court will resolve liability using Rule 23(b)(2) procedures

and, if liability is established, adjudicate damages using “opt

out” procedures in Rule 23(b)(3)). This procedure retains the

benefits of Rule 23(b)(2) and Rule 23(b)(3) for all parties, and

“promotes both ease of administration and the underlying

principles of Rule 23.” See Williams v. Local No. 19, Sheet

Metal Workers Int’l Ass’n, 59 F.R.D. 49, 56 (E.D. Pa. 1973)

(explaining that the liability issue will be litigated first and, if

the plaintiffs are successful, notice will be given for the damages proceeding). 

We do not express a view on whether the punitive damages

claims in this case meet the Rule 23(b)(3) requirements or, if

so, how the district court should manage the class proceedings

in order to comply with Seventh Amendment principles. We

believe, however, that this might be a case in which

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“[d]ivided certification also is worth consideration.” Jefferson, 195 F.3d at 898. 

5. Class Certification May Not be Proper as to

Class Members Who Were Not Wal-Mart

Employees as of the Date Plaintiffs’ Complaint

Was Filed

Wal-Mart’s final contention is that, because a substantial

number of the putative class members no longer work for

Wal-Mart—and, thus, no longer have standing to seek injunctive or declaratory relief—such relief cannot possibly predominate over monetary relief for purposes of certifying this

class under Rule 23(b)(2). 

[31] We agree with Wal-Mart to this extent: those putative

class members who were no longer Wal-Mart employees at

the time Plaintiffs’ complaint was filed do not have standing

to pursue injunctive or declaratory relief. See Walsh v. Nev.

Dep’t of Human Res., 471 F.3d 1033, 1037 (9th Cir. 2006)

(recognizing that former employees lack standing to seek

injunctive relief because they “would not stand to benefit

from an injunction requiring the anti-discriminatory policies

[to cease] at [their] former place of work”); ACLU of Nev. v.

Lomax, 471 F.3d 1010, 1015 (9th Cir. 2006) (“When evaluating whether [the standing] elements are present, we must look

at the facts ‘as they exist at the time the complaint was

filed.’ ” (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S.

555, 569 n.4 (1992))). Under these circumstances, it is difficult to say that monetary relief does not predominate with

respect to claims by plaintiffs who lack standing to seek

injunctive or declaratory relief. 

[32] However, this does not mean that former employees

are ineligible to receive any form of relief. Although women

who were not employed by Wal-Mart as of June 8, 2001, the

date on which the complaint was filed, do not have standing

to seek injunctive or declaratory relief, they may be eligible

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to receive back pay and punitive damages. The district court

may, in its discretion, certify a separate Rule 23(b)(3) class of

former employees for back pay and punitive damages. 

Putative class members who were still Wal-Mart employees as of June 8, 2001, do have standing to seek the injunctive

and declaratory relief requested in the complaint.47 See

Lomax, 471 F.3d at 1015. We are satisfied that class certification under Rule 23(b)(2) was not an abuse of discretion, at

least as to those Plaintiffs’ claims, for the reasons explained

in Parts II.B.1-II.B.4. 

In summary, we affirm the district court’s certification of

a Rule 23(b)(2) class insofar as the class consists of current

employees (as of the date the complaint was filed), with

respect to claims for injunctive relief, declaratory relief, and

back pay. On remand, the district court should analyze

whether certification under Rule 23(b)(2) or Rule 23(b)(3) is

appropriate for the punitive damages claims and whether an

additional class or classes may be appropriate under Rule

23(b)(3) with respect to the claims of former employees. The

court may, if appropriate, certify an additional class or classes

under Rule 23(b)(3). 

IV. CLASS ACTION CAN PROCEED IN A WAY THAT IS BOTH

MANAGEABLE AND IN ACCORDANCE WITH DUE PROCESS

[33] The district court was cognizant of the large size of

the class when it concluded that the class size was not unmanageable. See Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 173. Indeed, the district

court acknowledged that, “[w]hile courts possess wide discretion to flexibly respond to manageability issues that may arise

47For this reason, the dissent’s observation, Dissent at 6240, that four of

the lead plaintiffs have left Wal-Mart since filing their complaint, is irrelevant. Their standing was established as of that date and they were under

no obligation to continue to work for Wal-Mart throughout several years

of subsequent litigation in order to maintain their legal rights. 

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during the course of a class action, this Court must be confident that such issues will not be of such a magnitude as to

defy its ability to oversee this case in a responsible and reasonable manner.” Id. (citation omitted). After “giv[ing] these

matters considerable thought and deliberation,” the district

court concluded that, with one minor exception,48 “the size of

the class would not present undue obstacles to managing” this

class action. Id.

To demonstrate the manageability of the class action, the

district court outlined a trial plan based, in large part, on how

other courts have handled similarly large and complex class

action suits.49 Wal-Mart, supported by a number of businessrelated amici,50 contend that at least some aspects of this trial

48This one exception related to Plaintiffs’ promotion claim. The district

court determined that it would be unmanageable to fashion a remedy for

the subset of the class for whom objective applicant data did not exist. See

Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 183. As discussed above, the district court did not

abuse its discretion in its analysis and resolution of this issue. 

49The trial plan described by the district court involved two stages. In

Stage I, Plaintiffs would attempt to prove that Wal-Mart engaged in a pattern and practice of discrimination against the class via its company-wide

employment policies and that the pattern or practice “was undertaken

maliciously or recklessly in the face of a perceived risk that defendant’s

actions would violate federal law.” Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 173. If Plaintiffs

prevailed in Stage I, the case would move to Stage II, the remedy phase.

The first task in Stage II would be to fashion class-wide injunctive relief.

The second task would be to calculate and distribute the back pay award.

As to Plaintiffs’ promotional claim, a formula would be used to calculate

the “lump sum” in back pay that Wal-Mart owes to the class (a procedure

similar to that employed in Domingo, 727 F.2d at 1444-45). As to Plaintiffs’ equal pay claim, the court would examine Wal-Mart’s employment

records to determine which class members were victims of this form of

discrimination (and how much in back pay each is owed) to determine a

second “lump sum” owed by Wal-Mart. Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 174-86. A

separate procedure would then be used to distribute these lump sums to

those class members entitled to share in them — a stage in which WalMart would no longer have an interest. Id. at 179 n.49. 

50The court was favored with an extraordinary variety of amicus briefs

that were both thoughtful and helpful to it in its deliberations. 

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plan violate their due process rights, as well as section

706(g)(2) of Title VII,51 the Rules Enabling Act,52 and the

Supreme Court’s decision in Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 359-60.53

51This section states that “[n]o order of the court shall require . . . the

payment to [a person] of any back pay, if such individual . . . was refused

employment or advancement or was suspended or discharged for any reason other than [unlawful] discrimination” and that, “[o]n a claim in which

an individual proves a violation under section 2000e-2(m) of this title and

a respondent demonstrates that the respondent would have taken the same

action in the absence of the impermissible motivating factor, the court . . .

shall not award damages.” Title VII, § 706(g)(2) (codified at 42 U.S.C.

§ 2000e-5(g)(2)). 

52This statute states that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, including

Rule 23 regarding class actions, “shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any

substantive right. All laws in conflict with such rules shall be of no further

force or effect after such rules have taken effect.” 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b). 

53The dissent also argues that Wal-Mart “has a statutory right, recognized by the Supreme Court, to prove that its actions against individual

employees were not discriminatory,” which the dissent understands to

mean that the district “court must allow up to 1.5 million individual determinations of liability.” Dissent at 6238, 6265. However, as the dissent recognizes, this case is at least largely one for prospective relief, which is

available once a pattern and practice of discriminatory conduct is proven.

The dissent ignores that the pattern and practice has to be proven on a

group basis. Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 336 (Plaintiffs have “to prove more

than the mere occurrence of isolated or ‘accidental’ or sporadic discriminatory acts. [They] ha[ve] to establish by a preponderance of the evidence

that [gender] discrimination was the company’s standard operating

procedure—the regular rather than the unusual practice.”). It is both uneconomical and inefficient to do so in individual actions. In fact, since

Teamsters, we have affirmatively held that the district court may award

class-wide relief at the damages phase of a Title VII class action without

individualized hearings. See Domingo, 727 F.2d at 1444 (“The facts of this

case justify a departure from an individualized remedy for each claimant

. . . [because the defendant’s] lack of objective hiring criteria and use of

word-of-mouth recruitment . . . makes it difficult to determine precisely

which of the claimants would have been given a better job absent discrimination, but it is clear that many should have.” (citations omitted)). The dissent’s view would thus essentially preclude class members from either

obtaining relief that is available or proving the prima facie portion of the

damages case under Teamsters. 

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[34] At this stage, we express no opinion regarding WalMart’s objections to the district court’s tentative trial plan (or

that trial plan itself), but simply note that, because there are

a range of possibilities—which may or may not include the

district court’s proposed course of action—that would allow

this class action to proceed in a manner that is both manageable and in accordance with due process, manageability concerns present no bar to class certification here. 

For example, in Hilao v. Estate of Marcos, 103 F.3d 767,

782-87 (9th Cir. 1996), the district court employed the following procedure to determine the amount of compensatory damages due the plaintiffs in a large class action:54

In all, 10,059 claims were received. The district

court ruled 518 of these claims to be facially invalid,

leaving 9,541 claims. From these, a list of 137

claims was randomly selected by computer. This

number of randomly selected claims was chosen on

the basis of the testimony of James Dannemiller, an

expert on statistics, who testified that the examination of a random sample of 137 claims would

achieve “a 95 percent statistical probability that the

same percentage determined to be valid among the

examined claims would be applicable to the totality

of claims filed.” . . . . 

The district court then appointed Sol Schreiber as

a special master (and a court-appointed expert under

Rule 706 of the Federal Rules of Evidence). Schreiber supervised the taking of depositions . . . of the

137 randomly selected claimants . . . . 

54Hilao was a 10,000+ plaintiff class action filed by Philippine nationals

and their descendants who were allegedly victims of torture, summary

execution, and “disappearance” at the hands of Ferdinand E. Marcos, the

Philippines’ former president. 

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Id. at 782 (subheading omitted). “Schreiber then reviewed

the claim[s],” and “[h]e recommended that 6 claims of the

137 in the sample be found not valid.” Id. at 782-83. “Schreiber then recommended the amount of damages to be awarded

to the 131 [remaining] claimants.” Id. at 783.

Based on his recommendation that 6 of the 137

claims in the random sample (4.37%) be rejected as

invalid, he recommended the application of a fiveper-cent invalidity rate to the remaining claims. 

. . . . 

He recommended that the award to the class be

determined by multiplying the number of valid

remaining claims . . . by the average award recommended for the . . . claims . . . . 

. . . . 

By adding the recommended awards . . . Schreiber

arrived at a recommendation for a total compensatory damage award . . . . 

. . . . 

A jury trial on compensatory damages was [then]

held . . . [Hilao’s statistical expert] testified that the

selection of the random sample met the standards of

inferential statistics, that the successful efforts to

locate and obtain testimony from the claimants in the

random sample “were of the highest standards” in

his profession, that the procedures followed conformed to the standards of inferential statistics, and

that the injuries of the random-sample claimants

were representative of the class as a whole. Testimony from the 137 random-sample claimants and

their witnesses was introduced. Schreiber testified as

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to his recommendations, and his report was supplied

to the jury. The jury was instructed that it could

accept, modify or reject Schreiber’s recommendations and that it could independently, on the basis of

the evidence of the random-sample claimants, reach

its own judgment as to the actual damages of those

claimants and of the aggregate damages suffered by

the class as a whole.

The jury deliberated for five days before reaching

a verdict. Contrary to the master’s recommendations,

the jury found against only two of the 137 claimants

in the random sample. As to the sample claims, the

jury generally adopted the master’s recommendations, although it did not follow his recommendations in 46 instances. As to the claims of the

remaining class members, the jury adopted the

awards recommended by the master. The district

court subsequently entered judgment for 135 of the

137 claimants in the sample in the amounts awarded

by the jury, and for the remaining plaintiffs . . . in the

amounts awarded by the jury, to be divided pro rata.

Id. at 783-84 (subheadings and footnotes omitted). 

On appeal, the Hilao court was presented with some of the

same objections to its trial plan as Wal-Mart presents here.55

After a lengthy discussion, however, the Hilao court rejected

these challenges and approved of the trial plan, addressing the

due process issue as follows:

While the district court’s methodology in determining valid claims is unorthodox, it can be justified

55For example, the defendant in Hilao argued that the trial plan “violated its rights to due process because individual questions apply to each

subset of claims, i.e., whether the action was justified, the degree of injury,

proximate cause, etc.” 103 F.3d at 785 (internal quotation marks omitted).

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by the extraordinarily unusual nature of this case.

“ ‘Due process,’ unlike some legal rules, is not a

technical conception with a fixed content unrelated

to time, place and circumstances.” Cafeteria and

Restaurant Workers Union, Local 473 v. McElroy,

367 U.S. 886, 895 . . . (1961). 

. . . . 

The interest of the [defendant] that is affected is at

best an interest in not paying damages for any

invalid claims. . . . The statistical method used by the

district court obviously presents a somewhat greater

risk of error in comparison to an adversarial adjudication of each claim, since the former method

requires a probabilistic prediction (albeit an

extremely accurate one) of how many of the total

claims are invalid. . . . Hilao’s interest in the use of

the statistical method, on the other hand, is enormous, since adversarial resolution of each class

member’s claim would pose insurmountable practical hurdles. The “ancillary” interest of the judiciary

in the procedure is obviously also substantial, since

9,541 individual adversarial determinations of claim

validity would clog the docket of the district court

for years. Under the balancing test set forth in

Mathews [v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976),] and

[Connecticut v.] Doehr[, 501 U.S. 1 (1991)], the procedure used by the district court did not violate due

process.

Hilao, 103 F.3d at 786-87 (footnote and citations omitted). 

Because we see no reason why a similar procedure to that

used in Hilao could not be employed in this case,56 we con56We note that this procedure would allow Wal-Mart to present individual defenses in the randomly selected “sample cases,” thus revealing the

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clude that there exists at least one method of managing this

large class action that, albeit somewhat imperfect, nonetheless

protects the due process rights of all involved parties.57

Accordingly, we find no manageability-based reason to find

this otherwise-certifiable class unsuited to class certification.

CONCLUSION

For the reasons set forth above, we hold that the district

court acted within its broad discretion in concluding that it

would be better to handle some parts of this case as a class

action instead of clogging the federal courts with innumerable

individual suits litigating the same issues repeatedly. The district court did not abuse its discretion in finding the requirements of Rule 23 satisfied with respect to those Plaintiffs who

were still Wal-Mart employees on June 8, 2001, and with

respect to claims for injunctive and declaratory relief and

approximate percentage of class members whose unequal pay or nonpromotion was due to something other than gender discrimination. The

“invalid claim rate” revealed by this process would, as it did in Hilao,

come very close to the invalid claim rate one would expect to find among

the entire class. 

57We do not suggest that this is the only conceivable way in which this

class action could lawfully progress. Indeed, the district court may want

to consider whether a more limited “test case” procedure similar to that

employed in In re TMI Litig. Consol. Proceedings, 927 F. Supp. 834, 837

& n.5 (M.D. Pa. 1996), would aid the parties in evaluating the strength of

their respective claims. 

And, of course, the option proposed by the district court may also

remain viable; indeed, it appears that a number of circuits have approved

of similar trial plans in discrimination cases. See, e.g., Segar, 738 F.2d at

1291 (explaining why a similar trial plan did not violate § 706(g)(2) of

Title VII and commenting that, “[i]f effective relief for the victims of discrimination necessarily entails the risk that a few nonvictims might also

benefit from the relief, then the employer, as a proven discriminator, must

bear that risk”); see also Shipes, 987 F.2d at 316-19; Catlett v. Mo. Highway & Transp. Comm’n, 828 F.2d 1260, 1266-67 (8th Cir. 1987). We

point to the Hilao procedure above solely because this circuit has already

considered and approved of that procedure. 

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back pay. Given the tentative nature of the district court’s trial

plan, we decline to address Wal-Mart’s due process and manageability challenges to that plan. We note, however, that the

district court has the discretion to modify or decertify the

class should it become unmanageable. Although the size of

this class action is large, mere size does not render a case

unmanageable. 

We deny Plaintiffs’ cross-appeal, because the district court

did not abuse its discretion when it found that back pay for

promotions may be limited to those Plaintiffs for whom proof

of qualification and interest exists. Finally, we must reiterate

that our findings relate only to class action procedural questions; we neither analyze nor reach the merits of Plaintiffs’

allegations of gender discrimination. 

AFFIRMED in part; REMANDED in part. Each party to

bear its own costs on appeal.

GRABER, Circuit Judge, concurring:

The majority and the dissent have written scholarly and

complete explanations of their positions. What the length of

their opinions may mask is the simplicity of the majority’s

unremarkable holding:

Current female employees may maintain a Rule

23(b)(2) class action against their employer, seeking

injunctive and declaratory relief and back pay on

behalf of all the current female employees, when

they challenge as discriminatory the effects of their

employer’s company-wide policies.

If the employer had 500 female employees, I doubt that any

of my colleagues would question the certification of such a

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class. Certification does not become an abuse of discretion

merely because the class has 500,000 members.

I therefore concur fully in the majority opinion.

IKUTA, Circuit Judge, with whom Chief Judge KOZINSKI

and Judges RYMER, SILVERMAN, and BEA join, dissenting: 

No court has ever certified a class like this one, until now.

And with good reason. In this case, six women who have

worked in thirteen of Wal-Mart’s 3,400 stores seek to represent every woman who has worked in those stores over the

course of the last decade—a class estimated in 2001 to

include more than 1.5 million women. According to the plaintiffs’ theory, Wal-Mart has a corporate policy of discrimination which it implements through the discretionary decisions

of store managers, resulting in class-wide injury in violation

of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. 

But while the six plaintiffs allege they have suffered discrimination at the hands of a few individual store managers,

they fail to present “[s]ignificant proof” of a discriminatory

policy or practice of Wal-Mart that would make it possible to

conclude that 1.5 million members of the proposed class suffered similar discrimination. See Gen. Tel. Co. of Sw. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 159 n.15 (1982). Without evidence of a

company-wide discriminatory policy implemented by managers through their discretionary decisions, or other evidence of

a discriminatory company-wide practice, there is nothing to

bind these purported 1.5 million claims together in a single

action. See id. at 158-59. 

Then there is the problem of individual hearings. Under

Title VII, Wal-Mart has the right to raise affirmative defenses

as to each class member’s claim. This means the court must

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allow up to 1.5 million individual determinations of liability.

On its face, a class action of this sort makes no sense.

In certifying the class despite these obstacles, the district

court abused its discretion. In affirming most of the district

court’s determinations, the majority compounds the error, and

creates a precedent for class action suits that departs from the

language and intent of Rule 23 of the Federal Rules of Civil

Procedure, ignores Supreme Court mandates, and neglects the

rights of defendants. I respectfully dissent.

I

A brief review of the facts highlights the obstacles to certifying this class. Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in

the world, Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Dukes I), 222

F.R.D. 137, 141 (N.D. Cal. 2004), and the largest retail chain

in the United States. At year-end 2001, when this suit was

filed, Wal-Mart employed over 930,000 retail employees in

hundreds of different jobs at roughly 3,400 stores nationwide.

Wal-Mart’s corporate structure is complex. The company

divides its retail operation into seven divisions, six for WalMart and one for Sam’s Club.1

 Those divisions are split into

41 separate regions, each of which is overseen by a regional

vice president. The regions are further divided into roughly

400 individual districts, which are headed by district managers. Each of Wal-Mart’s regions consists of 80 to 85 stores,

with Wal-Mart employing anywhere from 80 to 500 people

per store. 

Individual stores are run by store managers who are responsible for hiring and promoting the hourly employees in their

respective stores. At each store, assistant managers report to

1Sam’s Club is a separate corporate division within Wal-Mart, but operates in roughly the same manner and with a similar organizational structure as Wal-Mart. 

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store managers; these management positions are salaried, and

employees may be promoted to these positions after first

working as entry-level, non-salaried management trainees.

Wal-Mart’s retail employees work hourly in 53 different

departments and 170 different job classifications; these positions include cashiers, associates, team leads, and department

managers. 

Wal-Mart gives its managers substantial discretion in both

pay and promotion decisions. Store managers make pay decisions for hourly employees, subject only to a general pay

structure. Id. at 146. Store managers “are allowed to depart

from the minimum start rates, within a two dollar per hour

range, without being constrained by objective criteria and

with limited oversight.” Id. at 146-47. Wal-Mart also allows

store managers to increase pay for exceptional performance.

Id. at 147. District managers set the pay for salaried employees. They have “discretion to set pay rates with little guidance

and limited oversight.” Id. 

Managers likewise have substantial discretion in making

promotion decisions. Wal-Mart has corporate guidelines

regarding entrance requirements for its management trainee

program, but individual store managers may apply their own

subjective criteria in selecting employees who will be invited

to enter the program. Id. at 148. Decisions regarding advancement into the highest store-level managerial positions (assistant manager, co-manager, and store manager) are “similarly

based on subjective assessments beyond adherence to corporate minimum guidelines.” Id. Discretion is “further compounded by the fact that the company does not monitor the

promotion decisions being made or otherwise systematically

review the grounds on which candidates are selected for promotion.” Id. at 149. 

This action was brought by six women on behalf of all

women who were employed in any retail store position

throughout Wal-Mart. Two of these six women still work at

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Wal-Mart. Of the other four, one was terminated,2

 and three

left Wal-Mart before the complaint was even filed.3 In the

aggregate, these six plaintiffs worked at ten stores in California, one store in Texas, one store in Oklahoma, and one store

in Missouri. Three plaintiffs allege that they expressed interest in, or applied for, various promotions at the store in which

they were then employed, but did not receive them. These

three women allege that men were promoted instead. Only

one of these plaintiffs, Christine Kwapnoski, has held a management position. Two plaintiffs allege that similarly situated

men received higher pay. One plaintiff alleges that a lessqualified man received the same pay as she did. 

Together, these six women assert that they are adequate

class representatives of a class comprising “[a]ll women

employed at any Wal-Mart domestic retail store at any time

since December 26, 1998 who have been or may be subjected

to Wal-Mart’s challenged pay and management track promotions policies and practices.” Id. at 141-42. The class includes

every woman working in Wal-Mart’s retail stores, which by

definition encompasses salaried store managers who were

responsible for the allegedly discriminatory hiring decisions,4

assistant managers and co-managers who were also responsi2Edith Arana was terminated in October 2001 for falsifying her time

sheets. 

3The complaint was filed in June 2001. Patricia Surgeson left Wal-Mart

in March 2001 to take another job, Cleo Page resigned in November 2000

after she received a written warning for performance issues, and Deborah

Gunter resigned in August 1999 after Wal-Mart reduced her hours. 

4For example, proposed class representative Page alleges that she was

passed over for promotion by her store manager, Monique Taylor. Proposed class representative Gunter complained about being passed over for

a promotion by her store manager, Kathy Bishop, who Gunter also alleges

brushed off allegations Gunter made about sexual harassment. Proposed

class representative Kwapnoski discussed her interest in promotion with

her assistant manager, Nancy Hom. Taylor, Bishop, and Hom are all members of the proposed class. This case features the unusual distinction of

placing victims and their alleged victimizers on the same side of the counsel table. 

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ble for much of the alleged discriminatory treatment, and

hourly workers whose in-store positions range from personnel

clerk to deli manager. At the time the suit was filed, the class

was estimated to include 1.5 million women.5

II

Before it can certify a class, a court must ensure that the

proposed class meets the standards set forth in Rule 23 of the

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Rule 23 is a procedural rule

that permits courts to aggregate the legal claims of multiple

parties when it is efficient and fair to do so.6 It does not alter

the substance of claims or the plaintiffs’ burden to prove their

claims. See 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b).

We review the district court’s class certification decisions

for abuse of discretion. Staton v. Boeing Co., 327 F.3d 938,

953 (9th Cir. 2003). Abuse of discretion occurs when the district court commits a legal error, or when it “relies upon an

improper factor, omits consideration of a factor entitled to

substantial weight, or mulls the correct mix of factors but

makes a clear error of judgment in assaying them.” Vinole v.

Countrywide Home Loans, Inc., 571 F.3d 935, 939 (9th Cir.

2009) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).

5The majority criticizes the dissent for pointing out the large size of the

class, reasoning that the class size may decrease by up to two-thirds if past

employees are excluded. See Maj. Op. at 6148 n.3. In determining whether

the district court abused its discretion, however, we must consider the

class actually certified by the district court, which included past employees. Dukes I, 222 F.R.D. at 188. Moreover, as explained below, the reasons this class cannot be certified apply with equal force regardless of

whether the class represents 1.5 million individuals or the class of 500,000

envisioned by the majority. 

6Rule 23(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that “[o]ne

or more members of a class may sue or be sued as representative parties

on behalf of all members only if” the class meets the prerequisites of

numerosity, commonality, typicality, and adequacy of representation. 

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Here, the district court abused its discretion in two ways.

First, it failed to follow the Supreme Court’s direction to

“evaluate carefully the legitimacy of the named plaintiff’s

plea that he is a proper class representative under Rule 23(a),”

Falcon, 457 U.S. at 160, and to ensure “after a rigorous analysis” that the prerequisites of Rule 23(a) have been met, id. at

161. Second, the district court erred in ignoring Wal-Mart’s

statutory right to raise defenses to liability for back pay and

punitive damages under Title VII, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e5(g)(2); Rules Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b), and therefore abused its discretion in holding that the proposed class

could be certified under Rule 23(b)(2). I would reverse and

remand this action to the district court to correct these errors,

which I address below in turn.

A

In Falcon, the Supreme Court held that when a small number of plaintiffs allege company-wide discrimination and

attempt to certify a company-wide class, the district court

must undertake a “rigorous analysis” to determine whether the

Rule 23(a) commonality and typicality factors exist.7 Falcon,

457 U.S. at 157, 161; see Staton, 327 F.3d at 953-54 (calling

a proposed class of 15,000 members throughout six facilities

an “ambitious” claim for commonality that was “therefore

especially worthy of scrutiny”). As Falcon explained, the

plaintiff’s own experience of discrimination does not allow

the district court to infer that “discriminatory treatment is typ7The term “commonality” refers to the requirement in Rule 23(a) that

“there are questions of law or fact common to the class”; “typicality”

refers to the requirement that “the claims or defenses of the representative

parties are typical of the claims or defenses of the class.” Fed. R. Civ. P.

23(a). Falcon noted that “[t]he commonality and typicality requirements

of Rule 23(a) tend to merge. Both serve as guideposts for determining

whether under the particular circumstances maintenance of a class action

is economical and whether the named plaintiff’s claim and the class claims

are so interrelated that the interests of the class members will be fairly and

adequately protected in their absence.” 457 U.S. at 158 n.13. 

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ical of [the employer’s employment] practices.” 457 U.S. at

158; see E. Tex. Motor Freight Sys., Inc. v. Rodriguez, 431

U.S. 395, 403-04 (1977). Indeed, the Court warned, “if one

allegation of specific discriminatory treatment were sufficient

to support an across-the-board attack, every Title VII case

would be a potential companywide class action.” Falcon, 457

U.S. at 159. Instead, to maintain a company-wide class action

based on discrimination, the plaintiff must bridge the “wide

gap” between: (1) the plaintiff’s own discriminatory treatment; and (2) the existence of a class that has suffered the

same injury as the plaintiff as a result of a company-wide discriminatory policy. Id. at 157. 

This principle is simple common sense. A female employee

in a store in California, for example, may have a valid claim

that her supervisor discriminated against her when making

decisions regarding promotion opportunities. But this individual claim would not by itself entitle the California employee

to bring the alleged discrimination claims of female employees in a store in Wyoming. Absent evidence that the Wyoming employees had been subject to the same sort of

discrimination and could bring the same sort of claims, such

a proposed class would clearly fail the Rule 23(a) commonality and typicality requirements. A fortiori, a female employee

in California could not represent a class of all female employees in Wal-Mart absent similar proof to bridge the gap

between her claim and the existence of company-wide discrimination.

The Supreme Court has identified two situations in which

a plaintiff could potentially bridge this gap. The first is where

a plaintiff alleges that an employer “used a biased testing procedure” to evaluate all members of the proposed class. Id. at

159 n.15. This makes sense because if the employer used a

biased testing procedure throughout the company, then every

employee subject to the test would have a similar claim. 

The Court’s second example applies directly to this case: a

plaintiff “conceivably” could bring a company-wide Title VII

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action if the plaintiff adduced “[s]ignificant proof that an

employer operated under a general policy of discrimination”

and the discriminatory policy was implemented through “entirely subjective decision making processes” in a manner that

affected all members of the class. Id. This example also

makes sense. As the majority acknowledges, Maj. Op. at

6208, subjective decision making by itself is not a discriminatory practice. See Watson v. Fort Worth Bank & Trust, 487

U.S. 977, 988, 990 (1988) (“It is true, to be sure, that an

employer’s policy of leaving promotion decisions to the

unchecked discretion of lower level supervisors should itself

raise no inference of discriminatory conduct.”). But if an

employer has a company-wide policy of discrimination

against women, and the employer implements this policy

through company-wide subjective decision making, then the

plaintiff could reasonably claim that all female employees

were subject to the same discriminatory employment practice.

As in our prior example, if the female employee in the California store could offer proof of a company-wide policy of

discrimination against women, she would be able to allege

that female employees in stores throughout the country suffered a similar discriminatory injury as she did. 

Although Falcon did not spell out what constitutes “significant proof” of the existence of a general policy of discrimination, it did make one thing clear: Evidence of discrete

instances of discrimination are insufficient to sustain an inference of an employer’s general policy and do not rise to the

level of “significant proof.” See 457 U.S. at 158 (holding that

evidence that the plaintiff “was passed over for promotion

when several less deserving whites were advanced” may support a claim of individual discrimination, but “would not necessarily justify” a company-wide claim of discrimination).

This is the standard that must be applied to the claims here.

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B

The majority offers several reasons for concluding it is not

bound by Falcon’s “significant proof” requirement. First, the

majority claims that this requirement has little weight because

it was a “hypothetical in clear dicta.”

8

 Maj. Op. at 6178 n.15.

This contention has no merit. We are bound by the Supreme

Court’s instructions whether they are stated in the first sentence of an opinion or in the final footnote. Falcon’s analysis

of Rule 23(a) is controlling here, given that it is the sole

Supreme Court case addressing Rule 23(a) in the Title VII

discrimination context and is directly on point in this case.

Moreover, the significant proof requirement is clearly a reasonable interpretation of Rule 23(a); a plaintiff cannot bring

a company-wide discrimination class action unless there is

sufficient evidence that the alleged discriminatory injury actually affected employees throughout the company. 

Second, the majority attempts to cabin Falcon to its facts,

asserting that the “significant proof” requirement applies only

when the plaintiff is an employee of the company and other

members of the purported class are job applicants. In such a

case, the majority asserts, the plaintiff and the purported

members of the class have “distinct legal theories of recovery.” Maj. Op. at 6179. The majority’s efforts to distinguish

Falcon on this ground are unpersuasive. Falcon’s determination that the district court erred in certifying a class of existing

employees and job applicants was based on the general principle that a plaintiff’s claims must “fairly encompass” those of

8To support this point, the majority cites to a dissent from the denial of

rehearing en banc, Lopez-Rodriguez v. Holder, 560 F.3d 1098 (9th Cir.

2009), which provides no support. See Maj. Op. 6178-79 n.15. LopezRodriguez merely stated that the Supreme Court’s language should not be

applied “to create a new rule—one [the Court] never envisioned.” Maj.

Op. at 6178 n.15 (quoting Lopez-Rodriguez, 560 F.3d at 1099). This truism does not support the majority’s position that we have the option to

ignore the Supreme Court’s guidance on an issue directly before the Court,

as in Falcon. 

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the class to meet the Rule 23(a) commonality and typicality

requirements. See Falcon, 458 U.S. at 156. In elaborating further on this principle, the Supreme Court explained that plaintiffs who seek to bridge the gap between their claims and

those of the class members by alleging a general companywide policy of discrimination must adduce “significant proof”

that such a policy exists. Id. at 159 n.15. The Supreme Court

did not limit this principle to classes combining plaintiffs with

hiring and promotion claims.

Finally, the majority claims that Falcon’s “significant

proof” requirement conflates the class certification and merits

phases of the litigation. Maj. Op. at 6180 n.17. This is incorrect. Falcon does not require plaintiffs to prove the merits of

their claim; here, for example, plaintiffs need not establish a

prima facie case of discrimination that can survive the

employer’s rebuttal evidence, nor need they prove their

claims for individual relief. See Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters v.

United States, 431 U.S. 324, 360 (1977). But Falcon does

require the plaintiffs to put forth some significant proof, i.e.,

evidence beyond allegations, that a general policy of discrimination exists. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 159 n.15. More important,

as Falcon states (and as the majority acknowledges), courts at

the class certification stage must “probe behind the pleadings”

to examine evidence which goes to the requirements of Rule

23, even if such evidence also relates to the underlying merits

of the case. Id. at 160. In this context, the degree of overlap

between the merits determination and the determination that

the class meets the Rule 23 requirements is largely irrelevant.

Id. Rather, Falcon’s principle that a handful of individual

incidents of discrimination are insufficient for class certification is applicable both at the merits stage and the class certification stage. See Cooper v. Fed. Reserve Bank, 467 U.S. 867,

876-77 (1984). If plaintiffs cannot demonstrate that the proposed class was subject to a general policy of discrimination,

then the class action is not an efficient mechanism for pursuing relief, and the district court may not certify the class. 

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C

We must consider plaintiffs’ motion for class certification

under Rule 23(a) in light of Falcon’s requirements. In this

case, the plaintiffs asked the district court to certify a class of

1.5 million women based on: (i) 120 anecdotes; (ii) statistical

evidence; and (iii) expert testimony.9 In light of Falcon, the

district court’s responsibility to conduct a rigorous scrutiny of

this evidence was clear. As explained below, the evidence

does not come close to meeting the Falcon requirements for

demonstrating commonality and typicality.

1

On its face, 120 anecdotes, or one anecdote for every

12,500 class members, does not support plaintiffs’ claim that

Wal-Mart had a company-wide policy of discrimination. The

affidavits describe the affiants’ experiences in, at most, 235 of

Wal-Mart’s 3,400 stores, meaning that the affidavits provide

no information about working conditions in over 3,100 stores.

A single affidavit from a single store in Michigan tells little

about whether there is discrimination at each of the other 72

stores in Michigan, let alone the rest of the company. Cooper,

467 U.S. at 877-78; see Cooper v. S. Co., 390 F.3d 695,

714-15 (11th Cir. 2004) (holding that evidence of discrimination in one part of a company does not necessarily give rise

to an inference of discrimination in a different part of the

company), overruled on other grounds by Ash v. Tyson

Foods, Inc., 546 U.S. 454, 457-58 (2006) (per curiam).

9As pointed out by the majority, the plaintiffs also produced “facts supporting the existence of company-wide policies and practices.” Maj. Op.

at 6187. Because it is undisputed that Wal-Mart maintains uniform

company-wide policies, and because the mere existence of company-wide

policies says nothing about whether such policies are discriminatory, there

is no need to discuss such “facts” separately from plaintiffs’ other purported evidence. 

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Nor are the 120 affidavits geographically representative of

Wal-Mart as a whole. See Cooper, 390 F.3d at 719 (upholding

the district court’s determination that, “given the sheer size

and geographically dispersed nature of the defendants’ workforce, the anecdotal evidence—disturbing as some of it may

have been—was inadequate to establish discrimination classwide”). Here, more than half of the 120 women who submitted affidavits are concentrated in only six states—Alabama,

California, Florida, Missouri, Texas, and Wisconsin—where

less than a third of Wal-Mart stores are located. There are no

more than one or two affidavits relating to Wal-Mart operations in half the states, and 14 states are not represented at all.10

The Supreme Court has held that a court may find a

company-wide policy of discrimination where plaintiffs have

offered a substantial number of affidavits compared to the

size of the class, along with sufficient statistical evidence.11

Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 339. In Teamsters, for example, 40

anecdotes of discrimination out of a class of some 334

employees (one out of every eight class members) were held

probative of a pattern or practice of discrimination. See

10The number of Wal-Mart stores and managers set forth in this paragraph are based on information provided by plaintiffs’ expert, Dr. Marc

Bendick, and are current as of 1999. 

11Until today, this circuit’s largest stretch to uphold certification in an

employment discrimination class action based on a small number of incidents of discrimination occurred in Staton, where 237 individuals sought

to represent a class of 15,000 African American employees. 327 F.3d at

948 n.4, 953. Cautioning that this was an “ambitious” claim for commonality that was “especially worthy of scrutiny,” id. at 954, we nevertheless

upheld the district court’s class certification. In doing so, we noted that

plaintiffs’ lawyers interviewed more than 1,300 employees from facilities

across the country, filed detailed documentation of discrimination experienced by 200 of those employees, and produced a company-wide internal

survey to support their claims of class-wide racial discrimination. Id.

Accordingly, at a minimum, the plaintiffs presented anecdotal evidence

from one out of every 75 class members. No court, however, has ever held

that one anecdote could suffice to represent the experiences of as vast a

number as 12,500 class members. 

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United States v. T.I.M.E.-D.C., Inc., 517 F.2d 299, 308 (5th

Cir. 1975), overruled by Teamsters, 431 U.S. 324. These 40

anecdotes were from employees spread throughout the company and represented seven of the company’s ten largest operations. See id. at 315 & n.30.

On the other hand, the Supreme Court has concluded that

a handful of discriminatory incidents is insufficient evidence

of a company-wide policy of discrimination to justify certification of a company-wide class. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 159. A

plaintiff’s individual experience of discriminatory treatment

does not itself raise the inference that such treatment is typical

of the employer’s practices. Id. at 158; see Cooper, 467 U.S.

at 877-78 (“[A] class plaintiff’s attempt to prove the existence

of a companywide policy, or even a consistent practice within

a given department, may fail even though discrimination

against one or two individuals has been proved.”). 

Here, 120 affidavits compared to 1.5 million members of

the class amount to nothing more than evidence of “isolated

or sporadic” incidents of discrimination, Cooper, 468 U.S. at

876, which are insufficient to show a company-wide policy of

discrimination. See Falcon, 457 U.S. at 159. The affiants

claim discrimination in different forms, at the hands of different people, in different stores, in different parts of the country,

at different times, and under a constellation of facts unique to

each individual. Whether or not these 120 employees have

actionable discrimination claims against the store and management where they worked, their individual stories do not

constitute significant proof that Wal-Mart has adopted a general policy of discrimination or that such a policy prevails in

the remaining 3,100 stores. In relying on such scanty anecdotal evidence to support class certification, the district court

failed to “probe behind the pleadings” to determine whether

the six plaintiffs actually did “possess the same interest and

suffer the same injury” as the proposed class members. Id. at

160. 

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The majority makes the same mistake. Discarding WalMart’s objection that the district court abused its discretion in

considering the 120 affidavits to be an adequate basis for certifying the class, the majority states, “we find no authority

requiring or even suggesting that a plaintiff class submit a

specific number of declarations for such evidence to have any

value.” Maj. Op. at 6205. This is a straw-man argument. The

Supreme Court has not specified a threshold number of affidavits that a plaintiff alleging company-wide discrimination

must have in hand. But if the plaintiff’s affidavits do not raise

the inference that the employer’s practices are “motivated by

a policy of [gender] discrimination” pervading the employer’s

company, they do not support class certification. Falcon, 457

U.S. at 158. Here, the majority’s conclusion that one declaration for every 12,500 women, amounting to a handful of declarations scattered among 3,400 stores in fifty states, “raise[s]

an inference of common discriminatory experiences,” Maj.

Op. at 6206, does not pass even the straight-faced test.

2

The plaintiffs’ statistical evidence is no better. Plaintiffs

relied most heavily on the statistical study produced by Dr.

Richard Drogin, a retired professor of statistics from California State University, Hayward. Drogin conducted a regional

analysis comparing the percentage of women promoted into

management positions at Wal-Mart with the percentage of

women in the available pool of hourly workers, and concluded that women were underrepresented in management in

almost every one of Wal-Mart’s 41 regions. Drogin also compared the earnings of women to the earnings of men at WalMart and concluded that in each region, Wal-Mart pays

women less than men in comparable hourly positions. 

Wal-Mart objected to this evidence on the ground that data

aggregated at the regional or national level did not demonstrate there was a general policy of discrimination throughout

Wal-Mart’s 3,400 individual retail stores. The district court

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dismissed these objections. Rejecting what it characterized as

Wal-Mart’s effort “to engage the Court in a merits evaluation

of the expert opinions,” the district court stated it would

“delve[ ] into the substance of the expert testimony only to the

extent necessary to determine if it is sufficiently probative of

an inference of discrimination to create a common question as

to the existence of a pattern and practice of gender discrimination at Wal-Mart.” Dukes I, 222 F.R.D. at 155. Applying this

standard, the court held that Drogin’s regional analysis was

not “lacking in probative value,” was “at least a reasonable

means of conducting a statistical analysis,” id. at 159, and

therefore was sufficient to “create an inference of discrimination” for class certification purposes, id. at 164. 

The district court’s superficial examination of Drogin’s statistics constituted legal error. The plaintiffs’ class proposal

hinged on its proof that Wal-Mart had a general policy of discrimination; absent convincing proof on that point, the plaintiffs could not bridge the gap between their discrimination

claims and the purported claims of the class. Accordingly, the

district court was obliged to scrutinize plaintiffs’ evidence and

make a reasoned determination as to whether it constituted

significant proof that Wal-Mart had a general policy of discrimination, and thus whether the requirements of Rule 23(a)

had been met. See Falcon, 457 U.S. at 161. 

The district court expressly rejected this responsibility.

Instead of rigorously analyzing whether the plaintiffs’ evidence was significant proof of a general policy of discrimination, the district court made it Wal-Mart’s burden to prove

that Drogin’s statistics were no longer probative or were “fatally flawed.” See Dukes I, 222 F.R.D. at 161-62; see also id.

at 159 (concluding that Wal-Mart failed to persuade the court

“that Dr. Drogin’s regional analysis should be rejected . . .

because it is lacking in probative value”); id. at 160 (concluding that “[Wal-Mart] has not discredited or nullified Dr.

Drogin’s results” with respect to Wal-Mart’s objection that

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vant factors). The majority affirms this error by simply labeling the district court’s analysis as “rigorous” and insisting

(without analysis) that the district court adequately probed

behind the pleadings. 

Had the district court properly analyzed the evidence, it

could not have concluded that Drogin’s statistics constituted

significant proof of plaintiffs’ theory. Information about disparities at the regional and national level does not establish

the existence of disparities at individual stores, let alone raise

the inference that a company-wide policy of discrimination is

implemented by discretionary decisions at the store and district level. As Wal-Mart’s statistical expert, Dr. Joan Haworth,

explained, the statistical disparities at the regional level could

be due to decisions made at only a small percentage of WalMart stores.12 Indeed, Haworth concluded that, when data is

considered at the store level, over 90 percent of Wal-Mart’s

stores showed no statistical difference in the hourly pay rates

between men and women associates with similar work-related

characteristics. Although Drogin argued that it was proper to

conduct an analysis on a regional level because “the subjec12In fact, Haworth pointed out that the statistical disparities between

men and women at the regional level could also be the result of the aggregation of the data itself. This problem is known as “Simpson’s Paradox,”

which refers to “illusory disparities in improperly aggregated data that disappear when the data are disaggregated.” Eng’g Contractors Ass’n of S.

Fla. Inc. v. Met. Dade County, 122 F.3d 895, 919 n.4 (11th Cir. 1997); see

also P.J. Bickel, E.A. Hammel, & J.W. O’Connell, Sex Bias in Graduate

Admissions: Data from Berkeley, 187 Science 398 (1975) (using Simpson’s Paradox to explain how researchers found a statistically significant

bias in favor of male applicants when analyzing admissions data from all

101 of Berkeley’s graduate departments, despite the fact that only 4

departments had a statistically significant bias in favor of males and 6

departments had a statistically significant bias in favor of females). As the

article cited by the majority shows, it is especially likely that Drogin’s statistics would display illusory disparities, because Drogin based his study

on pre-existing information that was collected from a large sample size.

See Marios G. Pavlides & Michael D. Perlman, How Likely Is a Simpson’s

Paradox, 63 Am. Statistician 226, 230 (2009). 

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tive decision-making in compensation and promotions takes

place within parameters and guidelines that are highly uniform, and within a strong corporate culture,” Dukes I, 222

F.R.D. at 157, this argument makes little sense. Among other

things, this argument is contrary to the thrust of plaintiffs’

legal theory, namely, that the decisions of individual managers regarding pay and promotions are subjective and not subject to uniform “parameters and guidelines.” It is also contrary

to the district court’s own determination that “in-store pay and

promotion decisions are largely subjective and made within a

substantial range of discretion by store or district level managers.” Id. at 152. More important, because statistical disparities may exist at the regional level even if the majority (or all)

of the store managers made nondiscriminatory decisions at the

store level, Drogin’s data is not sufficiently probative of conditions at the store level to constitute significant proof of the

existence of a class subjected to a policy of company-wide discrimination.13

The majority disposes of Wal-Mart’s objection that

regional data is not indicative of a general discriminatory policy at individual stores by criticizing Wal-Mart’s statistics,

which aggregated data at the sub-store rather than the store

level, an approach the district court had previously allowed.

13The district court also relied on a study prepared by Dr. Marc Bendick, Ph.D., an economist and consultant, which made a company-wide

comparison of Wal-Mart with twenty purportedly similar (but much smaller) retail companies. The study concluded that on a company-wide basis

Wal-Mart promoted a smaller percentage of women than its competitors.

Again, the district court applied the wrong legal standard. Instead of conducting a rigorous evaluation of the evidence as required by Falcon, it

accepted Bendick’s study at face value because it held it was “sufficiently

probative to assist the Court in evaluating the class certification requirements at issue in this case.” Dukes v. Wal-Mart, Inc. (Dukes II), 222

F.R.D. 189, 195 (N.D. Cal. 2004). In fact, Bendick’s study did not provide

support for plaintiffs’ claim that the 1.5 million women in the class were

subject to discriminatory treatment in promotions, because it too failed to

provide information derived from the level at which promotion and pay

decisions were actually made. 

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Dukes I, 222 F.R.D. at 157 n.25. But the quality of the defendant’s statistics is not the issue here; rather, it is the plaintiffs’

burden to produce significant proof of a policy of discrimination across Wal-Mart that manifested itself in similar ways

throughout the company. See Falcon, 457 U.S. at 160. Plaintiffs’ statistics lack probative value even without Wal-Mart’s

opposing data. 

3

Finally, the district court committed legal error by failing

to test the reliability of the expert opinion of William Bielby,

Ph.D., as required by Federal Rule of Evidence 70214 and

Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579,

589 (1993). In brief, Bielby presented his theory that subjective decision making, such as that which occurs at Wal-Mart

stores, is “susceptible to unconscious discriminatory

impulses.”15 Wal-Mart moved to strike Bielby’s testimony on

14Federal Rule of Evidence 702 states that: 

If scientific, technical, or other specialized knowledge will assist

the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact

in issue, a witness qualified as an expert by knowledge, skill,

experience, training, or education, may testify thereto in the form

of an opinion or otherwise, if (1) the testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data, (2) the testimony is the product of reliable

principles and methods, and (3) the witness has applied the principles and methods reliably to the facts of the case. 

15The majority cites to Melissa Hart & Paul M. Secunda, A Matter of

Context: Social Framework Evidence in Employment Discrimination

Class Actions, 78 Fordham L. Rev. 37 (2009), for a description of Bielby’s

“social framework analysis.” Maj. Op. at 6189 n.21. In employment discrimination litigation, social framework experts purport to summarize

social science research regarding the workplace to give the finder of fact

a “context” in which to decide key legal issues. Hart & Secunda, supra,

at 44. The article by Hart and Secunda discusses the dispute among social

psychologists over whether it is appropriate for experts like Bielby to use

social framework analysis to draw specific factual conclusions about a

company’s operations without the use of case-specific research. See id. at

51-55. The controversy over the reliability of this methodology highlights

the need for a proper Daubert inquiry here. 

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the ground that his opinion was not reliable. According to

Wal-Mart, Bielby failed to apply the same standards to his

work in preparing his testimony that he applied to his work

as a scientist. Wal-Mart alleged, inter alia, that Bielby had

misrepresented aspects of the literature upon which he relied,

made unsustainable extrapolations from that literature, failed

to consider evidence that tended to undermine his theory, and

failed to test his data. 

Instead of evaluating the reliability of Bielby’s report in

light of Wal-Mart’s arguments, the district court denied WalMart’s motion on the ground that “courts should not even

apply the full Daubert ‘gatekeeper’ standard” at the class certification stage. Dukes II, 222 F.R.D. at 191. Rather, the district court held that “[t]he appropriate question at this stage of

the litigation is not whether Dr. Bielby can make a conclusive

determination, but whether [his opinion] could add probative

value to the inference of discrimination that plaintiffs allege.”

Dukes I, 222 F.R.D. at 154. Concluding that the report was

not “so flawed that it lacks sufficient probative value to be

considered in assessing commonality,” the district court relied

on Bielby’s report in making its determination that plaintiffs

met the Rule 23(a) requirements. Dukes II, 222 F.R.D. at 192.

In so ruling, the district court misunderstood Daubert and

the level of inquiry required at the class certification stage.

The purpose of conducting a Daubert inquiry is to ensure that

proffered expert testimony is relevant and reliable. Kumho

Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137, 152 (1999). “It is to

make certain that an expert, whether basing testimony upon

professional studies or personal experience, employs in the

courtroom the same level of intellectual rigor that characterizes the practice of an expert in the relevant field.” Id. To this

end, a court must make “a preliminary assessment of whether

the reasoning or methodology underlying the testimony is scientifically valid and of whether that reasoning or methodology properly can be applied to the facts in issue.” Daubert,

509 U.S. at 592-93. Courts are obliged to address allegations

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that an expert’s opinion is not supported by the data, and may

reject “opinion evidence that is connected to existing data

only by the ipse dixit of the expert.” Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner,

522 U.S. 136, 146 (1997). 

These principles are equally applicable in the class certification context. The district court must “assess all of the relevant evidence admitted at the class certification stage and

determine whether each Rule 23 requirement has been met,

just as the judge would resolve a dispute about any other

threshold prerequisite for continuing a lawsuit.” In re Initial

Pub. Offerings Sec. Litig., 471 F.3d 24, 42 (2d Cir. 2006).

Like any other evidence, expert evidence introduced to “establish a component of a Rule 23 requirement” must be reliable; it is not enough that the expert testimony is “not fatally

flawed.” Id.; see also Am. Honda Motor Co. v. Allen, No. 09-

8051, slip op. at 6 (7th Cir. April 7, 2010) (holding that the

court must conduct a Daubert analysis on key expert testimony even at the class certification stage); In re Hydrogen

Peroxide Antitrust Litig., 552 F.3d 305, 323 (3d Cir. 2008)

(“Expert opinion with respect to class certification, like any

matter relevant to a Rule 23 requirement, calls for rigorous

analysis.”). A court cannot reasonably certify a class based on

evidence that is not “based upon sufficient facts or data, . . .

the product of reliable principles and methods,” and the product of reliable application of the methods to the facts. Fed. R.

Evid. 702. Although a district court has considerable discretion under Daubert, there is no basis for the district court’s

conclusion that it can forego a reliability inquiry altogether.

The district court abused its discretion in doing so.16

16The majority writes that it is “not convinced by the dissent’s argument

that Daubert has exactly the same application at the class certification

stage as it does to expert testimony relevant at trial.” Maj. Op. at 6191

n.22. But the majority never accounts for why it is “not convinced,” nor

does it explain why the district court can rely on an expert’s testimony that

is not reliable, at the class certification stage or any other. Rule 702 and

the Supreme Court make clear that evidence that is not scientifically valid

does not “ ‘assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.’ ” Daubert, 509 U.S. at 589 (quoting Fed. R. Evid.

702). 

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The majority’s discussion of this claim misses the mark

entirely. First, instead of engaging the question whether the

district court properly tested the reliability of Bielby’s testimony, the majority simply concludes that “Dr. Bielby presented scientifically reliable evidence.” Maj. Op. at 6193. This

not only assumes the answer to the very question at issue, but

is wrong on its face: The district court explicitly did not consider whether the evidence was “scientifically reliable,” holding instead that the evidence was not “so flawed that it lacks

sufficient probative value to be considered in assessing”

whether class certification was appropriate. Dukes II, 222

F.R.D. at 192.17

The majority focuses its discussion on what it characterizes

as Wal-Mart’s objection to the persuasiveness of Bielby’s testimony. According to the majority, Wal-Mart “did not (and

does not) challenge Dr. Bielby’s methodology.” Maj. Op. at

6190. In fact, Wal-Mart never challenged the persuasiveness

of Bielby’s testimony, but rather challenged Bielby’s methodology, a challenge that is proper under Daubert. See Daubert,

509 U.S. at 592-93; see also Joiner, 522 U.S. at 144. By missing this point, the majority erroneously approves the district

court’s reliance on an arguably unreliable expert opinion. 

D

When plaintiffs’ evidence is subjected to the rigorous

inquiry required by Falcon, it is inadequate to bridge the gap

between the six plaintiffs’ claims of individual discrimination

and a class-wide claim of company-wide discrimination.

None of plaintiffs’ evidence is probative of company-wide

17The majority errs in suggesting that the district court performed a

proper Daubert inquiry, see Maj. Op. at 6191-92 n.22, because it stated

that Bielby’s opinion “is based on valid principles.” Dukes II, 222 F.R.D.

at 192. Whether Bielby based his testimony on valid principles says nothing about whether he applied those principles via a valid methodology to

produce relevant and reliable evidence, which is the critical issue under

Daubert. 

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discrimination. Every piece of evidence merely purports to

support another. While plaintiffs’ anecdotes do not show

company-wide discrimination, plaintiffs argue they support

the statistical evidence. The statistics are not probative of a

company-wide policy of discrimination, but plaintiffs allege

they may be “attributable” to such a policy when viewed in

connection with Wal-Mart’s uniform corporate policies. Maj.

Op. at 6187-88. The uniform corporate policies are not themselves discriminatory but, according to plaintiffs, provide a

potential “conduit” for discrimination. Maj. Op. at 6187. The

expert opinions do not point to discrimination on a companywide basis, but merely “support[ ] the existence of companywide policies and practices that likely include a culture of gender stereotyping.” Maj. Op. at 6187 (emphasis added). And

Wal-Mart’s corporate policy of subjective decision making is

not discriminatory in itself but, plaintiffs urge, may be evidence of company-wide discrimination in light of the statistical evidence and anecdotes. Maj. Op. at 6207. Like the

proverbial shell game, the plaintiffs’ circular presentation cannot conceal the fact that they have failed to offer any significant proof of a company-wide policy of discrimination, no

matter which shell is lifted. 

By taking the district court’s determination at face value,

the majority erroneously accepts a chain of weak inferences

as sufficient to carry plaintiffs’ burden of adducing significant

proof that Wal-Mart “operated under a general policy of discrimination” that affected all members of the class. Falcon,

457 U.S. at 159 n.15. Any reasonable scrutiny of the evidence

in this case compels the conclusion that although the six

plaintiffs here may have individualized claims of discrimination, they cannot represent a class of 1.5 million past and

present employees. The district court abused its discretion in

holding that the plaintiffs met the commonality and typicality

requirements of Rule 23(a).

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III

Even assuming the district court was correct in concluding

that the proposed class satisfied the Rule 23(a) standard, the

district court made two crucial errors when it certified the

class under Rule 23(b)(2). First, the district court failed to

consider whether it could protect the parties’ substantive

rights in the class action context. Although the plaintiffs were

bringing Title VII claims, the district court erroneously concluded that it had no obligation to allow Wal-Mart to raise the

statutory defenses provided by Title VII. This was an error:

A court must ensure that its certification of a class does not

affect the substantive rights of either party. See Rules

Enabling Act, 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b)18; Ortiz v. Fibreboard

Corp., 527 U.S. 815, 845 (1999) (“[N]o reading of the Rule

can ignore the Act’s mandate that rules of procedure shall not

abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right.” (internal

quotation marks omitted) (quoting Amchem Prods., Inc. v.

Windsor, 521 U.S. 591, 613 (1997))). This mistake led to a

second legal error: Because the district court turned a blind

eye to Wal-Mart’s right to individual hearings, the district

court failed to realize that the class did not fit the historical

model of Rule 23(b)(2), and therefore could not be certified

under that section of the rule.

A

The parties’ substantive rights in this case are defined by

Title VII. The majority acknowledges that the legal and factual frameworks of different causes of action can impact the

outcome of a court’s Rule 23 determination. Maj. Op. at

6152-53, 6171-72. Yet the majority fails to address the spe1828 U.S.C. § 2072(b) provides: 

(b) Such rules [of practice and procedure prescribed by the

Supreme Court] shall not abridge, enlarge or modify any substantive right. All laws in conflict with such rules shall be of no further force or effect after such rules have taken effect. 

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cific legal and factual framework of Title VII or consider how

it impacts the certification of plaintiffs’ proposed class. It is

therefore necessary to provide some background regarding the

structure of claims and defenses under Title VII before discussing the majority and district court’s error in certifying the

proposed class under Rule 23(b)(2).

1

Under Title VII, the plaintiff has the ultimate burden of

establishing that the employer is engaged in an unlawful

employment practice described in 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2. If the

plaintiff prevails in a Title VII action, the court “may enjoin

the respondent from engaging in such unlawful employment

practice, and order such affirmative action as may be appropriate, which may include, but is not limited to, reinstatement

or hiring of employees, with or without back pay . . ., or any

other equitable relief as the court deems appropriate.” 42

U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g)(1). In cases where the plaintiff alleges

that the employer engaged in intentional discrimination, the

plaintiff may also seek compensatory and punitive damages.

§ 1981a(a)(1). Punitive damages are available only if the

plaintiff can show the employer acted “with malice or with

reckless indifference to the federally protected rights of an

aggrieved individual.” § 1981a(b)(1); e.g., Landgraf v. USI

Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 254 (1994). 

Title VII affords defendant-employers certain affirmative

defenses. If the employer can prove that an adverse employment action against an individual employee was “for any reason other than discrimination on account of race, color,

religion, sex, or national origin or in violation of section

2000e-3(a) of this title,” a court shall not order the “hiring,

reinstatement, or promotion of an individual as an employee,

or the payment to him of any back pay.” § 2000e-5(g)(2)(A).

Even if the employee proves that the adverse employment

action was motivated in part by a discriminatory motive, see

§ 2000e-2(m), a court cannot award damages or back pay if

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the employer can prove that it “would have taken the same

action in the absence of the impermissible motivating factor,”

§ 2000e-5(g)(2)(B)(ii). See Costa v. Desert Palace, Inc., 299

F.3d 838, 848 (9th Cir. 2002) (explaining that in a mixed

motive case, an employer “may assert an affirmative defense

to bar certain types of relief by showing the absence of ‘but

for’ causation”), aff’d, 539 U.S. 90. If the employer is successful in proving an affirmative defense, Title VII limits the

court to granting declaratory or injunctive relief, as well as

certain attorneys’ fees and costs. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e5(g)(2)(B)(ii). 

These defenses are available to a defendant regardless of

whether the plaintiffs allege discrimination against a single

individual or against a class. See 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b); Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 360 (citing Franks v. Bowman Trans. Co.,

421 U.S. 747 (1976)). An employer cannot be deprived of its

statutory right to raise individualized defenses to claims for

monetary relief merely because plaintiffs characterize their

claim as a pattern or practice of discrimination and bring the

suit on behalf of a class. Instead, the Supreme Court has created a framework for litigating pattern-or-practice claims that

provides employers the opportunity to put forth individual

defenses. See Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 360-62.19

The first phase of a Title VII pattern-or-practice lawsuit

focuses on company-wide practices. The party bringing the

19Teamsters involved a suit by the Attorney General under 42 U.S.C.

§ 2000e-6, which allows the government to bring an action when it has

cause to believe that a person “is engaged in a pattern or practice of resistance to the full enjoyment of any of the rights” secured by Title VII. 431

U.S. at 328 n.1. Teamsters’s two-step framework is equally applicable to

class actions brought by individuals alleging discrimination. See id. at

358-59 (noting that it was adopting the two-step framework set forth in

Franks, 424 U.S. 747, a class action brought by individuals alleging discrimination); see also Cooper, 467 U.S. at 876 n.9 (applying the Teamsters pattern-or-practice framework to class actions brought by

individuals). 

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suit must first attempt “to establish by a preponderance of the

evidence that . . . discrimination was the company’s standard

operating procedure[,] the regular rather than the unusual

practice.” Id. at 336. In this phase, the plaintiff need not show

that each member of the class “was a victim of the employer’s

discriminatory policy.” Id. at 360. If the plaintiff “establish[es] a prima facie case that such a policy existed[,]” the

burden shifts to the employer to show there was no such pattern of discrimination at a company-wide level. Id. If the

employer fails to rebut the inference of discrimination arising

from the plaintiffs’ prima facie case, the district court may

“conclude that a violation has occurred” and order prospective

relief. Id. at 361.

But if plaintiffs seek individual relief such as reinstatement

or back pay, the district court must conduct additional proceedings in the second phase of the trial “to determine the

scope of individual relief.” Id. In this second phase, “[t]he

proof of the pattern or practice supports an inference that any

particular employment decision, during the period in which

the discriminatory policy was in force, was made in pursuit of

that policy.” Id. at 362. Therefore, individual class members

may establish a prima facie case merely by showing that an

individual “unsuccessfully applied for a job and therefore was

a potential victim of the proved discrimination.” Id. (footnote

omitted). The burden then shifts to the employer to raise its

affirmative defenses and to “demonstrate that the individual

applicant was denied an employment opportunity for lawful

reasons.” Id. Teamsters acknowledged that the district court’s

task of determining individual relief would “not be a simple

one,” because “the court will have to make a substantial number of individual determinations in deciding which of the

minority employees were actual victims of the company’s discriminatory practices.”

20 Id. at 371-72. 

20While Teamsters referred to the second stage of individualized hearings as the “remedial” stage of trial, 431 U.S. at 361, this is a misnomer.

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As should be clear, claims for monetary relief cannot be

resolved until this second phase. See, e.g., Reeb v. Ohio Dep’t

of Rehab. & Corr., 435 F.3d 639, 651 (6th Cir. 2006); Lemon

v. Int’l Union of Operating Eng’rs, Local No. 139, 216 F.3d

577, 581 (7th Cir. 2000); Allison, 151 F.3d at 417. This

applies equally to punitive damages. Because the Supreme

Court has indicated that punitive damages must bear a “reasonable relationship to compensatory damages,” BMW of N.

Am., Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 580 (1996) (internal quotation marks omitted), “punitive damages must be determined

after proof of liability to individual plaintiffs at the second

stage of a pattern or practice case, not upon the mere finding

of general liability to the class at the first stage,” Allison, 151

F.3d at 418; see also 42 U.S.C. § 1981a(b)(1) (an employer

As explained by Justice O’Connor in her concurrence in Price Waterhouse

v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228 (1989), superceded in part by statute, Civil

Rights Act of 1991, the second stage of individualized hearings is not

remedial, but rather a second phase of liability, in which the employer is

entitled to raise individual statutory defenses: “It is misleading to speak of

the additional proof required by an individual class member for relief as

being a part of the damage phase, that evidence is actually an element of

the liability portion of the case.” Id. at 266 (O’Connor, J., concurring)

(quoting Dillon v. Coles, 746 F.2d 998, 1004 (3d Cir. 1984)). We have

explained the two-step procedure in a similar way. See EEOC v. Gen. Tel.

Co. of Nw., Inc., 599 F.2d 322, 332 (9th Cir. 1979) (holding that the demonstration of a discriminatory pattern and practice in the first phase of the

case establishes the individual class members’ prima facie case of discrimination, and shifts the burden to the employer “to prove that individuals

were not in fact victims of previous discrimination”); see also Domingo

v. New Eng. Fish Co., 727 F.2d 1429, 1445 (9th Cir. 1984) (holding that

once class-wide discrimination has been shown, a claimant is presumptively eligible for back pay, subject to the employer “proving that the

applicant was unqualified or showing some other valid reason why the

claimant was not, or would not have been, acceptable”). Other circuits are

in accord. See, e.g., Robinson v. Metro-North Commuter R.R. Co., 267

F.3d 147, 159 (2d Cir. 2001); Allison v. Citgo Petroleum Corp., 151 F.3d

402, 417-18 (5th Cir. 1998); Dillon, 746 F.2d at 1004; Craik v. Minn.

State Univ. Bd., 731 F.2d 465, 469-70 (8th Cir. 1984); Mitchell v. MidContinent Spring Co. of Ky., 583 F.2d 275, 284 (6th Cir. 1978). 

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may avoid punitive damages by showing lack of requisite

mens rea as to each aggrieved individual); Kolstad v. Am.

Dental Ass’n, 527 U.S. 526, 545-46 (1999) (holding that an

employer may avoid punitive damages under § 1981a if it has

made good-faith efforts to prevent discrimination in the workplace); Rodriguez-Torres v. Caribbean Forms Mfr., Inc., 399

F.3d 52, 64 (1st Cir. 2005) (holding that an employer’s good

faith efforts to implement an anti-discrimination policy in the

workplace is an affirmative defense to an award of punitive

damages under § 1981a).

In sum, a determination that an employer has engaged in a

pattern or practice of discrimination in violation of Title VII

entitles the class to prospective relief and creates a presumption of liability for individual relief. The employer then has a

statutory right, recognized by the Supreme Court, to prove

that its actions against individual employees were not discriminatory. The Rules Enabling Act prohibits a district court from

depriving an employer of this right simply to facilitate the certification of a class action.21 See 28 U.S.C. § 2072(b).

2

In this case, notwithstanding the requirements of Title VII,

the district court rejected Wal-Mart’s arguments that it was

entitled to raise a defense with respect to each class member’s

claim for back pay and punitive damages. Dukes I, 222 F.R.D.

at 173-74. The district court did not provide any reason for

21The majority accuses the dissent of “ignor[ing] that the pattern and

practice has to be proven on a group basis.” Maj. Op. at 6231 n.53

(emphasis in original). On the contrary, there is no doubt that a plaintiff

must establish a pattern and practice of discrimination on a company-wide

basis in the first phase of their case, as explained above. It is the majority

that turns a blind eye to the second phase of Title VII litigation, where

defendants have the right to raise affirmative defenses as to each class

member. The majority never satisfactorily answers the question of how the

district court would conduct up to 1.5 million individualized hearings during the second phase that Teamsters mandates. 

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this decision, stating only that “holding individual hearings

for the number of women potentially entitled to backpay in

this case is impractical on its face, and thus the traditional

Teamsters mini-hearing approach is not feasible here.” Id. at

176. 

It seems obvious that the district court’s determination that

it could not certify the class in compliance with Teamsters

compels the conclusion that it could not certify the class at all.

Nevertheless, the district court determined it could bypass

Supreme Court precedent. Relying on cases the court characterized as allowing back pay awards to be calculated on a

class-wide basis, see Dukes I, 222 F.R.D. at 176-78, 180, 184,

the district court held that once plaintiffs proved that WalMart engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination, liability as to individual class members could be determined by

means of a formula for employees denied promotions, id. at

176-78, or by analyzing Wal-Mart’s personnel data to identify

employees entitled to back pay, id. at 184-86. Further, the district court rejected Wal-Mart’s argument that punitive damages could not be awarded on a class-wide basis, holding that

it could “limit recovery of any punitive damages to those class

members who actually recover an award of lost pay,” as

determined by a formula. Id. at 172. 

In adopting the approach described above, the district court

deprived Wal-Mart of its statutory right to raise its defenses

and violated the mandate of the Rules Enabling Act. If WalMart can prove that it took an adverse employment action

with respect to a particular plaintiff for non-discriminatory

reasons, or that it “would have taken the same action in the

absence of the impermissible motivating factor,” 42 U.S.C.

§ 2000e-5(g)(2)(A), (B), it cannot be held liable for back pay

or punitive damages as to those individual class members. See

Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 361. 

The cases relied on by the district court, see Dukes I, 222

F.R.D. at 176-78, 180, 184, do not justify its refusal to pro6266 DUKES v. WAL-MART STORES

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vide individual hearings, but rather provide that defendants

are entitled to raise statutory defenses to liability. See

Domingo, 727 F.2d at 1445; see also McKenzie v. Sawyer,

684 F.2d 62, 77-78 (D.C. Cir. 1982), abrogated on other

grounds by Berger v. Iron Workers Reinforced Rodmen, Local

201, 170 F.3d 1111 (D.C. Cir. 1999); Hameed v. Int’l Ass’n

of Bridge, Structural & Ornamental Iron Workers Local

Union No. 396, 637 F.2d 506, 520 (8th Cir. 1980) (“If a black

applicant was rejected for a nondiscriminatory reason, that

applicant would not be a member of the class of potential discriminatees.”). The district court could not properly rely on

cases that preceded Teamsters, see, e.g., Stewart v. Gen.

Motors Corp., 542 F.2d 445, 452-53 (7th Cir. 1976), nor those

from other circuits that are contrary to Teamsters, see, e.g.,

EEOC v. O & G Spring & Wire Forms Specialty Co., 38 F.3d

872, 879-80 & n.9 (7th Cir.1994); Segar v. Smith, 738 F.2d

1249, 1291-92 (D.C. Cir. 1984).

B

The district court’s crucial misunderstanding of Title VII

and Teamsters led to a second mistake: it failed to undertake

a proper analysis of whether the proposed class should be certified under Rule 23(b)(2) or Rule 23(b)(3). The majority

makes the same error, with nary an acknowledgment that the

Supreme Court has provided general guidelines for making

this determination. See, e.g., Ortiz, 527 U.S. at 845-46;

Amchem, 521 U.S. at 625. Again, to understand how the district court and majority went astray, it is first necessary to

describe the basic analytical structure for categorizing classes

under Rule 23(b).

1

Rule 23(b) establishes three different types of classes. In

certifying a proposed class, courts must determine whether a

proposed class fits into the historical models on which Rule

23(b)(1) or (2) were based, or is a more “adventuresome”

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class action, Amchem, 521 U.S. at 614, that must be certified

under Rule 23(b)(3). See Ortiz, 527 U.S. at 832-37. 

Courts considering whether to certify a class under Rule

23(b)(1) or (2) must take the “prudent course” of staying

“close to the historical model” and “traditional paradigm” as

understood by the Advisory Committee in drafting the rule.

Ortiz, 527 U.S. at 842, 864. The Advisory Committee

intended Rule 23(b)(1) classes to be “limited fund” actions, a

type of action where multiple plaintiffs seek to divide a limited fund among claimants. Id. at 838-41. Rule 23(b)(2)

allows a court to certify a class action when “the party opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds that apply

generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting the class

as a whole.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2). A review of the historical sources relied upon by Ortiz reveals that the Advisory

Committee based Rule 23(b)(2) on “various actions in the

civil-rights field where a party is charged with discriminating

unlawfully against a class, usually one whose members are

incapable of specific enumeration.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2)

advisory committee’s note (1966). Specifically, the Committee cited, as the historical predicate of the Rule 23(b)(2)

action, cases where plaintiffs endeavored to desegregate public accommodations through prospective declaratory and

injunctive relief applicable to the class as a whole. Notably,

these historical actions sought the correction of a specific discriminatory policy affecting all members of the class in the

same way. See, e.g., Bailey v. Patterson, 323 F.2d 201, 206

(5th Cir. 1963). 

None of the cases cited by the Advisory Committee

included claims for monetary relief or individual relief of any

kind. Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2) advisory committee’s note.22

22The Advisory Committee Notes cites the following cases, none of

which involved monetary relief: Potts v. Flax, 313 F.2d 284 (5th Cir.

1963) (class action by two African-American parents against a “system6268 DUKES v. WAL-MART STORES

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The Advisory Committee Notes explain that, “[t]he subdivision does not extend to cases in which the appropriate final

relief relates exclusively or predominantly to money damages.” Id. In other words, Rule 23(b)(2) was designed for

classes seeking class-wide injunctive relief to remedy a common injury to the class as a whole, not for classes seeking

individual damages, back pay, or other individual relief.

While Rule 23(b)(1) and (2) are linked to well-understood

historical models, Rule 23(b)(3) was designed for those cases

in which “class-action treatment is not as clearly called for.”

Amchem, 521 U.S. at 615 (internal quotation marks omitted);

see also Ortiz, 527 U.S. at 842 (explaining that the “Advisory

Committee looked cautiously at the potential for creativity”

under Rule 23(b)(1) and (2) and was “not forward looking as

it was in anticipating innovations under Rule 23(b)(3)”); Fed.

R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3) advisory committee’s note. Specifically,

Rule 23(b)(3) provides for class actions that potentially allow

plaintiffs to seek monetary relief on a class-wide basis. Fed.

R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3) advisory committee’s note; Benjamin

Kaplan, Continuing Work of the Civil Committee: 1966

wide policy of racial segregation” in city schools); Bailey, 323 F.2d 201

(class action against laws segregating common carriers); Northcross v. Bd.

of Ed., 302 F.2d 818 (6th Cir. 1962) (class action by 18 African-American

students and their parents seeking an order that the city end its biracial

school system); Brunson v. Bd. of Trs. of Sch. Dist. No. 1, 311 F.2d 107

(4th Cir. 1962) (class action for school desegregation brought by 42

African-American students); Green v. Sch. Bd., 304 F.2d 118 (4th Cir.

1962) (non-class action by 28 African American students seeking transfer

to white schools and an injunction against school segregation); Mannings

v. Bd. of Pub. Inst., 277 F.2d 370 (5th Cir. 1960) (class of AfricanAmerican students seeking an injunction against school segregation);

Orleans Parish Sch. Bd. v. Bush, 242 F.2d 156 (5th Cir. 1957) (class

action on behalf of African-American school children to desegregate

schools); Frasier v. Bd. of Trs. of Univ. of N.C., 134 F. Supp. 589

(M.D.N.C. 1955) (3-judge court) (class action by three African-Americans

challenging a university’s discriminatory admissions policies), aff’d, 350

U.S. 979 (1956). 

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Amendments of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (I), 81

Harv. L. Rev. 356, 393 (1967). 

Because these more “adventuresome” class actions,

Amchem, 541 U.S. at 614, raise due process concerns, the

Advisory Committee imposed two safeguards on courts certifying such a class. First, a district court must “find[ ] that the

questions of law or fact common to class members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members.”

Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3). This inquiry ensures that deviation

from “the usual rule that litigation is conducted by and on

behalf of the individual named parties only” is justified. Califano v. Yamasaki, 442 U.S. 682, 700-01 (1979). Second, a

district court must give prospective class members the opportunity to be excluded from the class, which is commonly

known as the right to “opt out.” Fed. R. Civ. P.

23(c)(2)(B)(v). This option protects “the interests of the individuals in pursuing their own litigations[, which] may be so

strong here as to warrant denial of a class action altogether.”

Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 23(c)(2) advisory committee’s note. The

opt-out option also ensures that the class is binding on those

members of the class who choose not to opt out. Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 176 (1974). 

This right to opt out of a class action, however, is exclusive

to classes certified under Rule 23(b)(3). On its face, Rule 23

does not provide absent class members the right to request

exclusion in classes certified under Rule 23(b)(2), and it is

clear from the Rule’s structure that the Advisory Committee

did not intend for such a right to exist under Rule 23(b)(2).23

Moreover, the Supreme Court has interpreted Rule 23(b)(2) as

23For example, while Rule 23 provides that a court must give members

of Rule 23(b)(3) classes notice and the right to opt out of the class, and

may give notice to members of Rule 23(b)(2) classes, the Rule is silent on

whether a court may give members of Rule 23(b)(2) classes the right to

opt out. See Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 23(c)(2) and (d). The inference is that a

court may not allow members of a Rule 23(b)(2) class to opt out of the

class. 

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precluding opt outs. Ticor Title Ins. Co. v. Brown, 511 U.S.

117, 121 (1994). In Ticor, the Supreme Court dismissed its

grant of certiorari on the question whether binding absent

class members to a class-wide settlement would violate their

constitutional due process rights, where the district court certified the class under Rules 23(b)(1)(A) and (b)(2), and the

absent members had not had the chance to opt out of the class.

Id. at 120-21. The Court first noted that Rule 23(b)(3) permits

opt outs, and Rules 23(b)(1) and (b)(2) do not. Id. at 121.

From this, the Court reasoned it could avoid the constitutional

question raised in the petition for certiorari if it held that “in

actions seeking monetary damages, classes can be certified

only under Rule 23(b)(3),” not Rules 23(b)(1) and (b)(2). Id.

The Court concluded that this interpretation of Rule 23 “is at

least a substantial possibility.” Id.24

2

In certifying this class under Rule 23(b)(2), the district

court failed to take the “prudent course” required by Ortiz,

527 U.S. at 842, and consider the history and structure of Rule

23(b). Had the district court undertaken such a review, it

would have been compelled to conclude that the proposed

class does not fit the historical model for Rule 23(b)(2)

classes, and cannot be certified in that category. First, the proposed class raises an enormous number of individual questions. Although the plaintiffs’ action is in civil rights, the

plaintiffs do not ask merely for class-wide injunctive relief (as

24To avoid the import of Ticor, the majority once again claims it is not

bound by an order in which six Supreme Court justices have joined, characterizing Ticor as “not even dictum, let alone a holding.” Maj. Op. at

6224 n.44. Yet, the majority cites no authority for this position, perhaps

because the Ninth Circuit has relied upon such orders in prior opinions.

See, e.g., Carroll v. Nakatani, 342 F.3d 934, 946-47 (9th Cir. 2003) (relying on an order dismissing a writ as improvidently granted). Indeed, many

of the cases relied upon by the majority cite to Ticor. E.g., Reeb, 435 F.3d

at 646; Coleman v. Gen. Motors Acceptance Corp., 296 F.3d 443, 447 (6th

Cir. 2002); Allison, 151 F.3d at 411 n.3.

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in the cases cited by the Advisory Committee); they also seek

individualized relief in the form of back pay and punitive

damages. As explained above, this may result in up to 1.5 million individual questions about Wal-Mart’s liability for individual relief. A class that raises so many individual questions

also raises the concerns the Advisory Committee expressly

considered in drafting Rule 23(b)(3), and requires the court to

ask whether “the questions of law or fact common to class

members predominate over any questions affecting only individual members.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(3). Given the facts in

this case, it is far from certain that the proposed class could

be certified under the more flexible model provided by Rule

23(b)(3), let alone meet the narrower historical model for

Rule 23(b)(2). 

Second, the class’s claims for monetary relief raise the very

due process concerns considered by the Advisory Committee

in drafting Rule 23(b)(3). The district court acknowledged

that due process required that absent class members in this

case be given the right to opt out of the class. See Dukes I,

222 F.R.D. at 172-73. Because Rule 23(b)(2) does not permit

opt-outs, such recognition should have led the district court to

determine that certification under Rule 23(b)(2) was inappropriate, and to instead consider whether the class met the

criteria for certification under Rule 23(b)(3). 

Given the Supreme Court’s direction to adhere to the historical models in considering which classes can be certified

under Rule 23(b)(1) and (2), see Ortiz, 527 U.S. 815;

Amchem, 521 U.S. 591, there was no reason for the district

court here to sidestep the procedural requirements of Rule

23(b)(3) to certify this class under Rule 23(b)(2). See Eubanks

v. Billington, 110 F.3d 87, 93 n.9 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (noting that

when notice and opt-outs are required by the district court,

“the arguments supporting certification . . . under subdivision

(b)(2) [as opposed to (b)(3)] are surprisingly weak”). This is

particularly true given that the district court’s primary justification for certification under Rule 23(b)(2) was that the suit

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was similar to the historical model contemplated by the Advisory Committee. See Dukes, 222 F.R.D. at 170. In certifying

this class under Rule 23(b)(2), the district court abused its discretion.

C

In holding that the district court did not err in certifying the

class under Rule 23(b)(2), the majority focuses not on the

text, structure, and history of this rule, but rather on a single

sentence in the Advisory Committee Notes which states that

Rule 23(b)(2) “does not extend to cases in which the appropriate final relief relates exclusively or predominantly to money

damages.” Maj. Op. at 6215 (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2)

advisory committee’s notes). The majority infers from this

single sentence that Rule 23(b)(2) must therefore extend to

cases in which the appropriate final relief does not relate “exclusively or predominantly to money damages.” Maj. Op. at

6215. The majority then turns to a dictionary definition of the

word “predominant” and derives a new test: “a class must

seek only monetary damages that are not ‘superior [in]

strength, influence, or authority’ to injunctive and declaratory

relief.” Maj. Op. at 6215 (citing Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 978 (11th ed. (2004)).25 In furtherance of this

test, the majority directs district courts to consider “the objective ‘effect of the relief sought’ on the litigation,” by recourse

to “[f]actors such as [1] whether the monetary relief sought

determines the key procedures that will be used, [2] whether

it introduces new and significant legal and factual issues, [3]

whether it requires individualized hearings, and [4] whether

25The majority admits that it breaks with the Second Circuit in rejecting

the subjective intent test, as well as with the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and

Eleventh Circuits in rejecting the “incidental damages standard” test. Maj.

Op. at 6215. In creating this three-way circuit split, the majority not only

ignores our own precedent, see Zimmerman v. Or. Dep’t of Justice, 170

F.3d 1169, 1184 (9th Cir. 1999) (we create a circuit split “only after the

most painstaking inquiry”), but aggravates the already-existing inconsistency between the circuits. 

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its size and nature . . . raise particular due process and manageability concerns.” Maj. Op. at 6217.26

But in upholding the district court’s certification with

regard to back pay, the majority fails to apply these factors

from its own test. Had it done so, it would have concluded

that the district court erred in certifying the class under Rule

23(b)(2). First, the plaintiffs’ claim for back pay triggers the

need for a key procedure (factor 1), namely the requirement

for individualized hearings (factor 3). Second, the plaintiffs’

claims for individual relief introduced significant new legal

and factual issues into the case (factor 2), including WalMart’s defenses to liability, as well as due process concerns

that necessitate opt-outs (factor 4). Third, the need for individualized hearings raises serious manageability concerns

(factor 4). 

The majority avoids these issues, however, and dismisses

Wal-Mart’s arguments as mere objections to the district

court’s “trial plan.” Maj. Op. at 6231. The majority “express-

[es] no opinion regarding Wal-Mart’s objections to the district

court’s tentative trial plan” and concludes that there are many

steps the district court could take “that would allow this class

action to proceed in a manner that is both manageable and in

accordance with due process,” Maj. Op. at 6232 (citing Hilao

v. Estate of Marcos, 103 F.3d 767, 782-87 (9th Cir. 1996)).27

26As formulated by the majority, this test is essentially unusable. When

is back pay “superior in strength” to an injunction? When do punitive

damages have more “influence” than declaratory relief? It is unlikely that

this test, particularly as applied by the majority, provides the district court

with the guidance it needs on remand. 

27Quite apart from the question whether Wal-Mart is objecting to the

certification of the class (as it claims) or to the trial plan (as the majority

states), the procedure set forth in Hilao cannot be used in a Title VII case

and the majority errs in suggesting it can. We held in Hilao that a court

could determine compensatory damages for over 10,000 claimants in a

human rights action by means of a formula without violating the due process rights of the defendants. See Hilao, 103 F.3d at 782-87; but see id.

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The majority’s failure to address these objections runs contrary to the Supreme Court’s mandate, Ortiz, 527 U.S. at 861,

and the majority’s own rule, Maj. Op. at 6217 (stating that

courts must consider “whether [the proposed class action]

requires individualized hearings” when it determines whether

a class may be certified under Rule 23(b)(2)). 

Presumably because the application of its own test would

lead to the conclusion that the district court erred, the majority

does not apply its test (or remand back to the district court to

apply it, as it did with the punitive damages class). Instead,

the majority determines that the back-pay remedy does not

predominate over the claims for injunctive and declaratory

relief for two reasons: (1) the calculation of back pay in Title

VII cases “generally involves [relatively un]complicated factual determinations and few[ ] individualized issues,” and (2)

back pay is a “ ‘make whole’ remedial scheme, a scheme to

which the drafters of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

clearly intended Rule 23(b)(2) to apply.” Maj. Op. at 6220-21

(alterations in original) (citations omitted). As noted above,

neither of these rationales is correct. In this case, back pay

cannot be calculated until after Wal-Mart has had an opportunity to raise its defenses, which will involve the litigation of

a multitude of individual issues. Moreover, while the drafters

of Rule 23 intended that classes involving demands for

at 788 (Rymer, J. dissenting) (“If due process in the form of a real proveup of causation and damages cannot be accomplished because the class is

too big or to do so would take too long, then (as the Estate contends) the

class is unmanageable and should not have been certified in the first

place.”); Cimino v. Raymark Indus., Inc., 151 F.3d 297, 319 (5th Cir.

1998) (refusing to apply Hilao and noting that “we find ourselves in agreement with the thrust of the dissenting opinion there”). But Hilao has no

bearing on this effort to certify a Title VII class action, because Title VII

itself, and the Supreme Court’s interpretation of Title VII pattern-orpractice actions, see Teamsters, 431 U.S. at 360, give defendants their

right to a defense to each individual’s claim. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e5(g)(2). 

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injunctive relief be certified under Rule 23(b)(2), the majority

provides no evidence that the Advisory Committee thought

Rule 23(b)(2) was appropriate for classes seeking back pay.28

As to claims for punitive damages, the majority remands

the case to the district court to determine under its new test

whether the case could be certified under Rule 23(b)(2). Maj.

Op at 6226. Before doing so, however, it determines in a single sentence that punitive damages do not require individualized determinations because the plaintiffs allege that WalMart’s policy “affects all class members in a similar way.”

Maj. Op. at 6226. This unprecedented holding, made with virtually no analysis, is wrong both as a matter of law and fact.

As noted above, it conflicts with the statutory language of

Title VII, see 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g)(2)(B), and with the

28The majority claims it need not consider the problem posed by the

class’s pursuit of individual monetary relief because it is merely “join[ing]

the consensus view that a request for back pay in a Title VII case is fully

consistent with the certification of a Rule 23(b)(2) class action,” citing as

support Thorn v. Jefferson-Pilot Life Insurance Co., 445 F.3d 311, 331-32

(4th Cir. 2006) and Coleman, 296 F.3d 443. Maj. Op. at 6221-22 & n.41.

Again, the majority misses the point. The issue is not that plaintiffs seek

back pay; the issue is Wal-Mart’s statutory right to raise individual

defenses in response to the request for back pay, and whether such individualized treatment makes class-wide relief improper. Thorn and Coleman reinforce this point. In Coleman, the Sixth Circuit held that the

district court abused its discretion in certifying a class that included a

claim for compensatory damages, in large part because such relief would

require individual determinations as to each class member, thus obviating

the efficiencies of pursuing the action on a class-wide basis. 296 F.3d at

449. Likewise, in Thorn, the Fourth Circuit upheld the district court’s

denial of class certification, in part because the availability of a statute of

limitations defense presented individual issues that could not be determined on a class-wide basis. 445 F.3d at 327. Thorn distinguished prior

cases that certified classes requiring the calculation of back pay on the

ground that such calculations “generally involve[d] . . . fewer individualized issues.” Id. at 331 (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted).

When considered as a whole (rather than taking a few phrases out of context), Thorn and Coleman support the conclusion that class-wide relief is

inappropriate where claims may need be litigated on an individual basis.

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Supreme Court’s reasoning regarding punitive damages, see

BMW, 517 U.S. at 581. Moreover, it is factually wrong: even

assuming there was significant proof of a company-wide policy of discrimination, plaintiffs do not allege that Wal-Mart’s

alleged policy affected all class members in the same way for

purposes of determining monetary relief. Plaintiffs acknowledge that Wal-Mart’s allegedly discriminatory practices have

affected class members differently, stating that “different

class members may have been under-compensated in different

amounts; some employees may have been denied promotion

to assistant manager while others may have been denied promotion to store manager.” The district court cannot reasonably determine whether an individual class member was

injured, let alone the nature and amount of injury, until the

second phase of individual hearings has been accomplished.

Other circuits addressing the issue have agreed with this analysis. See, e.g., Reeb, 435 F.3d at 651; Lemon, 216 F.3d at 581;

Allison, 151 F.3d at 417. By untethering punitive damage

claims in a Title VII case from evidence regarding how the

plaintiffs were actually injured, the majority opens the door to

results that would be unfair to both claimants and defendants

in future Title VII class actions.

IV

The class action device is a procedural mechanism to

aggregate individual claims for purposes of judicial efficiency. Falcon, 457 U.S. at 159. By allowing claims to go forward that ordinarily would not be litigated, the class action

has proven to be an invaluable tool in litigating civil rights

and other cases involving systemic discrimination. But,

because Rule 23 creates a procedural device that constitutes

“an exception to the usual rule that litigation is conducted by

and on behalf of the individual named parties only,” Califano,

442 U.S. at 700-01, courts must use it carefully, ensuring that

the proposed class action complies with controlling law and

does not jeopardize the parties’ substantive rights. See Gulf

Oil Co. v. Bernard, 452 U.S. 89, 100 (1981) (holding that, in

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considering a proposal to certify a class, the district court’s

discretion is “bounded by the relevant provisions of the Federal Rules”). The “[m]ere invocation of the language of Rule

23 in Title VII suits is no mystical legal talisman guaranteeing

class treatment.” Doniger v. Pac. Nw. Bell, Inc., 564 F.2d

1304, 1312 (9th Cir. 1977). 

The district court here failed in its duty to apply Rule 23

carefully and correctly. In its enthusiasm for allowing the

class action to proceed, the district court sped forward, dodging substantive and procedural hurdles, and making an endrun around Title VII, the Rules Enabling Act, and Supreme

Court precedent. It conducted no rigorous analysis to determine “the existence of a class of persons who have suffered

the same injury” as the class representatives. Falcon, 457 U.S.

at 157. It certified the class even after determining that compliance with the Supreme Court’s framework in Teamsters

was infeasible. Finally, the district court failed to consider the

text, structure, and historical framework of Rule 23(b) that

should have guided its analysis. The resultant class certification runs directly contrary to controlling precedent.

Despite these flaws, the majority affirms those legal errors

with even less analysis and inquiry than the district court.

Never before has such a low bar been set for certifying such

a gargantuan class. The majority’s ruling provides scant limits

to the types of classes that can be certified. Put simply, the

door is now open to Title VII lawsuits targeting national and

international companies, regardless of size and diversity,

based on nothing more than general and conclusory allegations, a handful of anecdotes, and statistical disparities that

bear little relation to the alleged discriminatory decisions. The

district court abused its discretion in certifying this class. The

majority errs in concluding otherwise. While class actions

have a vital role to play in the battle against discrimination,

the majority’s decision to allow this case to go forward epitomizes the Supreme Court’s warning that “the rulemakers’ prescriptions for class actions may be endangered by those who

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embrace Rule 23 too enthusiastically just as they are by those

who approach the Rule with distaste.” Amchem, 521 U.S. at

629 (internal citations, quotation marks, and alterations omitted). I respectfully dissent.

KOZINSKI, Chief Judge, dissenting:

Maybe there’d be no difference between 500 employees

and 500,000 employees if they all had similar jobs, worked at

the same half-billion square foot store and were supervised by

the same managers. But the half-million members of the

majority’s approved class held a multitude of jobs, at different

levels of Wal-Mart’s hierarchy, for variable lengths of time,

in 3,400 stores, sprinkled across 50 states, with a kaleidoscope

of supervisors (male and female), subject to a variety of

regional policies that all differed depending on each class

member’s job, location and period of employment. Some

thrived while others did poorly. They have little in common

but their sex and this lawsuit.

I therefore join fully Judge Ikuta’s dissent.

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