Court Systems and Jurisdiction—Supreme Court Sides With Wal-Mart

Question 1 The processes that this case has to go through to get to the Supreme Court are as follows: The plaintiff has to file a document at the clerk of the court stating the reason plaintiff is suing defendant and actions the court should take, then a copy of this complaint and summons are delivered to the defendant. The defendant will now file an answer to agree or disagree with the complaint, information about the case is exchange between both parties and the case will be tried before a Judge or Jury. The judge makes decision or gives the jury verdict and the losing party may accept or appeal the lower court decision at a higher court. Appeals Court reviews the report of the lower court and affirms reverse or remands the case back to lower court. The plaintiffs were not happy about the ruling of the Appeal Court so she files a petition with Supreme Court to review decision of lower court records. Supreme Court decided to hear the case, listing to both parties’ attorneys, looked at the evidences presented, and make their judgment in favor of Wal-Mart.
Question 2 Majority opinion can be said to be an opinion or conclusion agreed to by all the presiding judges over a case. The ruling of the Supreme Court Justices over Wal-Mart case can be said to be majority opinion, “writing for the five-member court majority, Justice A. Scalia said that in order to sue as a single class, the women would have to point to a discriminatory policy that affected all of them, and they could not do that. Indeed, Scalia noted that the company has a specific corporate policy against discrimination.” (Totenberg, 2011). While a concurring opinion is something that makes one disagreed with the reason while they agreed with the majority opinion as it was written of Justice A. Scalia that “the women suing Wal-Mart could not show that they would receive “a common answer to the crucial question, why was I disfavored?” He noted that the company, the nation’s largest private employer, operated some 3,400 stores, had an expressed policy forbidding discrimination and granted local managers substantial discretion.”(Liptak, 2011), this show the reason why Justice A. Scalia disagree with his agreement with the majority opinion. And finally a dissenting opinion can be referred to as a total disagreement to the majority opinion. It’s complete opposite to what everyone else agreed to. As it is in the Wal-Mart case study that Justice Ruth B. Ginsburg “ pointed to previous Supreme Court decisions holding that a company-wide policy against discrimination can be undermined where, as alleged here, local supervisors have so much discretion that decisions are made without standards, often on the basis of biases even unrecognized by the supervisors themselves.” (Totenberg, 2011).
Question 3 The type of jurisdiction the federal courts have in this case is diversity jurisdiction which gives power to Supreme Court above the nature of a case and remedy stipulated. The Wal-Mart case study is more of a diverse case where the plaintiffs are people of different states. Because of the diversity of the case, this permits Supreme Court to hear the case and allows for a fair opportunity where the people of different states can have their case listen to. United States Constitution makes available for diversity jurisdiction in Section 1332 of Title 28 of the United States Code.

Reference

Liptak, A. (2011, June 20). Justices Rule for Wal-Mart in Class-Action Bias Case

Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/business/21bizcourt.html

Totenberg, N. (2011, June 20). Supreme Court Limits Wal-Mart Discrimination Case

Retrieved from http://www.npr.org/2011/06/20/137296721/supreme-court-limits-wal-

mart-discrimination-case