Law360, New York (September 5, 2012, 12:08 PM EDT) -- It has now been more than 14 months since the United States Supreme Court issued its landmark decision in Wal-Mart Store Inc. v. Dukes[1] clarifying the evidentiary standard plaintiffs must meet to establish "commonality" under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(a) for class action certification. Since then, courts throughout the country have struggled with applying Dukes to the facts of their cases and deciding if it applies at all. Courts have addressed whether to apply Dukes to a variety of employment discrimination class actions, consumer class actions, antitrust class actions; the list goes on and on. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals has ably tackled the applicability of Dukes several times and recently became the first federal appellate court to apply Dukes to reverse the certification of a hostile work environment (HWE) class....