On October 28, 2011, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011) denying class certification to plaintiffs seeking to represent a group of over 1.5 million women in a gender discrimination action against Wal-Mart, Stephanie Odle and six other named plaintiffs filed another action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated. Odle v. Wal-Mart, No. 3:11-cv-2954-O. Plaintiffs, who were part of the class in the Dukes action, alleged that Wal-Mart discriminated against them by “1) denying equal opportunities for promotion to management track positions and 2) denying equal pay for both hourly retail store positions and for salaried management positions.”
In contrast to a decision by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California (see our blog from September 27, 2012), on October 15, 2012, the Texas federal court dismissed the Odle case as a class case on statute of limitations grounds.
Wal-Mart moved to dismiss the Odle action on several grounds, including, among other things, that plaintiffs’ class allegations were barred by the statute of limitations. Plaintiffs contended that their class claims were protected by the equitable tolling rule set forth in American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, 414 U.S. 538 (1974) and Crown, Cork & Seal Co. v. Parker, 462 U.S. 345 (1983), and that the Dukes class action tolled the statute of limitations.
In American Pipe, the Supreme Court held that “the commencement of the original class suit tolls the running of the statute for all purported members of the class who make timely motions to intervene after the court has found the suit...
