LISA ELLIS, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ELGIN RIVERBOAT RESORT, et al., Defendants., 217 F.R.D. 415

Summary

The representative plaintiffs alleged that the employer discriminated against them under a disparate treatment theory of liability. A district judge previously certified the class pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2), on the express condition that the plaintiffs were able to satisfy the numerosity requirement of Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a), and found that the other prerequisites under Rule 23(a) had been met. However, the magistrate judge found that the putative class plaintiffs had not demonstrated that a common question of law or fact existed, that their claims were typical of those of the class, or that they could adequately represent the class. The employer's assertion that it used decentralized hiring procedures, and considered objective and subjective factors in hiring, militated against a finding of commonality. The establishment of unique defenses on the merits as to the named plaintiffs destroyed typicality, because they eliminated a primary purpose of a class action: to allow the ...