1. This story is about the Supreme Courts decision.

What process did this case have

to go through to get to the Supreme Court?
Answer: Most of the cases that made to the Supreme Court are appeals from lower
courts. This is appellate jurisdictions of the Supreme Court. The parties who are not
satisfied with the lower court decision may petition the U.S. Supreme Court to hear
their case. The primary petition to the Supreme Court is to request to grant a writ of
certiorari which if granted, Supreme Court order the lower court to send the record
of the case in questions for review. The Supreme Court is not under any obligation
to hear an appeal and it usually takes cases with national significance or
precedential value
In this video case, the plaintiffs filed the suit in the US federal court and the
unsatisfied with decision Wal-Mart appealed Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which
upheld the decisions of the lower court. The Wal-Mart appealed to the Supreme
Court. This is usually the process by which a case ends up in Supreme Court.
Sometimes Supreme Court hears appeals from cases from the highest Court in a
given state.
2. In the story, two justices wrote differing opinions about the issue. Discuss the
differences between a majority opinion, a concurring opinion, and a dissenting
opinion. What effect does each type of opinion have?
Answer: There are nine justices in the Supreme Court. The all make decision on a
case regarding how it should be resolved. Sometimes, they agree and sometime
they don't. In order to decide the resolution, the justices vote. The majority opinions
reflect of the resolution that is agreed upon by more than half of the members of
the court.

Sometimes members from the majority opinion issue concurring opinion.

Concurring opinion aggress with the majority opinion, but it express different
rationale for the same decision.
The Justices who disagree with the majority opinion can issue dissenting opinion
which express different outcome of case with different legal rationale.
On the state of the law in America the opinion of the Supreme Court judges are very
important. The majority opinion issues by the Supreme Court establish a precedent
that other courts and judges must follow. The concurring opinion does not establish
a binding precedent and other courts are not required to follow the decision.
Dissenting opinion does not establish a binding precedent, nor does it become a
part of case law.
3. What type of jurisdiction did the federal courts have in this case? Was it a federal
question case or a diversity of citizenship case? Why?
Answer: In this video case, the lawsuit the plaintiff wanted against Wal-Mart is a
class action lawsuit. Class action lawsuits can be filed in both state courts and
federal courts. Rule 23 of the Civil Procedure has the detailed instructions. In this
case the federal courts had jurisdiction according to the Rule of Civil Procedure, Rule
23(b) (2). In a class action, a single person or small group of plaintiffs seeks to
proceed on behalf of an entire class against the same defendants for the same
actions.
The Diversity of citizenship which is also called diversity jurisdiction is another
factor that allows a federal district court to hear a lawsuit. If the parties on the two
sides of the case are from different states filling for causes according to the state
laws, the federal court has the jurisdictions to hear the cases. In our case the

defendants and plaintiff are from the same state, therefore this would not be a
diversity of citizenship case.