Former Dukes Class Members Foiled By Eleventh Circuit’s 'No Piggybacking' Rule

Former Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes class members were dealt another blow this week when Southern District of Florida District Judge Robert N. Scola, Jr. granted Wal-Mart's motion to dismiss more regionally-focused class claims that had been brought by certain members of the doomed Dukes class. In Love v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., No. 12-61959-Civ-SCOLA (S.D. Fla. Sept. 23, 2013), the district court held that the class claims being asserted were time-barred and thus subject to dismissal.

Following the United States Supreme Court's landmark holding in Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011), reversing the certification of a nationwide class of female Wal-Mart employees alleging broad claims of sex discrimination upon a finding that plaintiffs failed to provide evidence of some specific company-wide discriminatory pay and promotion policy, a number of former Dukes class members - including the plaintiffs in the subject matter - filed separate putative class action suits in other jurisdictions, asserting claims of discrimination at a more regional level. While the statute of limitations for individual claims by the Dukes class members was tolled during the pendency of that action, once the case was remanded following the Supreme Court's decision, former class members faced deadlines to file individual charges with the EEOC and comply with the statute of limitations for their individual claims. Plaintiffs filed the subject putative class action on October 4, 2012, alleging that Wal-Mart engaged in sex discrimination in three regions in the Southeast United States, and asserting six counts of Title VII disparate treatment and disparate impact for each of the regions. They further asserted that they each met the statute of limitations deadline established by the remand court.

The district court, however, found that plaintiffs' class claims were time-barred by virtue of the Eleventh Circuit's "no piggybacking" rule, as set forth in Griffin v. Singletary, 17 F.3d 356 (11th Cir. 1994). In Griffin, the Eleventh Circuit held that "the pendency of a previously filed class action does not toll the limitations period for additional class actions by putative members of the original class." Id. at 359. Thus, under the Griffin rule, while the statute of limitations is tolled and a class member may file a new suit asserting individual claims following the rejection of previously filed class claims, he or she "may not piggyback one class action onto another." Id. at...