0.000375%

[Quantum Windbag]

class actions aren't about the amount of money to each individual plaintiff, they are about making a company STOP doing something or start doing something. it is not possible for individual plaintiffs to carry the cost of such litigations which would mean the wrong-doers keep doing whatever wrong is being done... or keep refusing to do whatever is needed to be done under the circumstances.

reality of the walmart case: if the facts are as stated (and at this point, they have to be accepted as true for any judicial determination) is that the company has a policy of discriminating against women in terms of career advancement and wages. given that wal-mart is the second largest employer in the country, after the federal government, this is no small number of affected people.

wal-mart's argument has been, essentially, that it is too big to be sued... that there are simply too many women for a class action to be appropriate. they say this because they know that if the class is de-certified, they can continue discriminating... same as in the ledbetter case. (hence my being pretty sure, and also based on kennedy's questions during oral argument, that this court will, in fact de-certify).

According to the plaintiffs managers at wal-mart said such things as (paraphrased but pretty close) "men need to support their families, so of course should make more money and have more advancement", and "G-d made Adam first, so women will always come second".

Any woman who thinks those things are ok is an idiot.

I think in your case, you just might want to reconsider. This idea that lawyers are horrible because they're mean to corporations and make them live up to their obligations is beyond me. Seriously...

everyone gets paid for their work. the right has zero, zip, zilch problem with corporate CEO's earning limitless amounts of money and sucking away funds that should be used to compensate workers fairly. but they are troubled when lawyers make money doing their jobs?

really?

what i kind of have to say to that is...

too bad.

They use dubious math, top that off with questionable interpretation of the results, and declare that Wal-Mart is discriminating because they have no formal, or informal, company wide policy requiring managers to promote based on statistics, skin color, and gender.

Then you, as a lawyer, decide that lawyers being able to make money and screw over their clients is more important than truth or justice.

Class actions might have started as a way to discourage bad behavior (a claim I am neither agreeing, or disagreeing, with) but they are now about intimidation and making lawyers rich. Dukes original claim was that she was discriminated against because she is black. For some reason, after consulting a lawyer, she suddenly decided that the problem was she is female, and that her skin color is totally irrelevant.

Wal-Mart, despite giving their managers complete discretion to promote whoever they want, is somehow responsible for widespread, organized, gender based discrimination. Certifying this would be a massive miscarriage of justice.

The use of modeling alone should prevent this from becoming law in of itself. You then have a lawsuit based not on discrimination itself, but upon a models assumption of what should be the "ideal" situation of employment in a company, followed by comparison to actual data.

Discrimination such as this needs to be fought at the micro level, not macro scale as in a class action. You need to prove actual discrimination, not just a possibility of it.

The use of modelling is not enough reason to refuse to certify. Statistical modelling, when properly used and understood, is a very effective method of making predictions and showing trends.

The problem here is that they are using models that fall outside the realm of normal use, and then they are interpreting the data in ways that are, at best, questionable. I personally believe that they designed the model, and deliberately interpreted the data, in a way that made it look like Wal-Mart is doing something that makes it possible to sue them. But that is just my cynical nature, and may not reflect reality.

 

[martybegan]

They use dubious math, top that off with questionable interpretation of the results, and declare that Wal-Mart is discriminating because they have no formal, or informal, company wide policy requiring managers to promote based on statistics, skin color, and gender.

Then you, as a lawyer, decide that lawyers being able to make money and screw over their clients is more important than truth or justice.

Class actions might have started as a way to discourage bad behavior (a claim I am neither agreeing, or disagreeing, with) but they are now about intimidation and making lawyers rich. Dukes original claim was that she was discriminated against because she is black. For some reason, after consulting a lawyer, she suddenly decided that the problem was she is female, and that her skin color is totally irrelevant.

Wal-Mart, despite giving their managers complete discretion to promote whoever they want, is somehow responsible for widespread, organized, gender based discrimination. Certifying this would be a massive miscarriage of justice.

The use of modeling alone should prevent this from becoming law in of itself. You then have a lawsuit based not on discrimination itself, but upon a models assumption of what should be the "ideal" situation of employment in a company, followed by comparison to actual data.

Discrimination such as this needs to be fought at the micro level, not macro scale as in a class action. You need to prove actual discrimination, not just a possibility of it.

The use of modelling is not enough reason to refuse to certify. Statistical modelling, when properly used and understood, is a very effective method of making predictions and showing trends.

The problem here is that they are using models that fall outside the realm of normal use, and then they are interpreting the data in ways that are, at best, questionable. I personally believe that they designed the model, and deliberately interpreted the data, in a way that made it look like Wal-Mart is doing something that makes it possible to sue them. But that is just my cynical nature, and may not reflect reality.

Good clarifciation, although as a person who uses modeling in his line of work (Engineering) I am still skeptical of thier use in a legal sense. They are good for design work and operational optimization, but only when used by someone with the skill to interpret the data, and the experince to know when some of the results are absolute crap.

 

[martybegan]

.0000375% is not statistically significant enough to do any data modeling.

Period.

Reminds me of the story of the wastewater plant that when put in operation perfomed incredibly poorly. Research into the model used for the design showed that the model was run on a SINGLE sample day, and those numbers were used for the design. Not sure if it is actually true, but gives an example of the limitations of models based on data.

 

[jillian]

That's true for most cases, but it is my understanding that for this case it is not true:

under 23(b)(2) the court MAY direct appropriate service. It is up to the court, not the attorneys.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure - Rule 23

Ahahahahahaha!!!!!

And you think that judges and attorneys aren't cronies?

Oh, Puh-leeeze.

it must be difficult always being the angry hack you are.

 

[Trajan]

well there goes that, I had a feeling the acorn analogy would be the turd in the punchbowl.....later folks.

 

[boedicca]

under 23(b)(2) the court MAY direct appropriate service. It is up to the court, not the attorneys.

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure - Rule 23

Ahahahahahaha!!!!!

And you think that judges and attorneys aren't cronies?

Oh, Puh-leeeze.

it must be difficult always being the angry hack you are.

It must be difficult to have such poor reading comprehension which causes you to draw false conclusions about an anonymous poster on a message board.