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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Courts - "Wal-Mart to face massive class-action suit"

A story from Paul Elias of the AP in today's Washington Post begins:

SAN FRANCISCO -- A sharply divided federal appeals court on Monday exposed Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to billions of dollars in legal damages when it ruled a massive class action lawsuit alleging gender discrimination over pay for female workers can go to trial.

In its 6-5 ruling, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said the world's largest private employer will have to face charges that it pays women less than men for the same jobs and that female employees receive fewer promotions and have to wait longer for those promotions than male counterparts.

The retailer has fiercely fought the lawsuit since it was first filed by six women in federal court in San Francisco in 2001 and said it would appeal the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The ruling "opens up every company in America that has employees to class actions like this," said Theodore Boutrous, the company's lead lawyer on the largest gender bias class action in U.S. history.

The appeals court upheld a lower court ruling allowing the lawsuit to go forward as a class action, which attorneys for the Wal-Mart employees said encompasses more than 1 million women. Wal-Mart disputes that figure and asserts fewer than 500,000 women are covered by the decision Monday.

Here is the 137-page opinion of the 9th Circuit in Dukes v. Wal-Mart.

Steven Greenhouse of the NY Times has this story, headed "Wal-Mart Gender Case Divides Court." It begins:

In a closely watched case, a sharply divided federal appeals court on Monday ruled 6-5 that a sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart could proceed as a class action for more than a million women. The suit is the biggest employment discrimination case in the nation’s history.

After a decade of pretrial maneuvering, the decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco, was a victory for the plaintiffs. It hastens an eventual trial for the women,, who are seeking billions of dollars from Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer.

“Wal-Mart tries to project an improved image as a good corporate citizen,” said Brad Seligman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs. “No amount of P.R. is going to work until it addresses the claims of its female employees.”

The lawsuit, brought in 2001, accuses the retailer of systematically paying women less than men, giving them smaller raises and offering women fewer opportunities for promotion. The plaintiffs stressed that while 65 percent of Wal-Mart’s hourly employees were women, only 33 percent of the company’s managers were.

Recall this Sept. 16, 2009 ILB entry re a $28 million Indiana settlement in a class-action lawsuit that accused Wal-Mart "of forcing employees to work through bathroom and meal breaks, and requiring them to work several hours off the clock."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 27, 2010 11:07 AM
Posted to Courts in general