Supreme Court throws out huge discrimination suit against Wal-Mart
In a 5-4 vote, justices rule that the lawsuit, which claimed that Wal-Mart discriminated against 1.5 million female workers, did not qualify as a class action.
California plaintiffs in the Wal-Mart job discrimination case take part in a news conference in Marc, |
By a 5-4 vote, the high court said the suit could not go forward as a class-action claim because the plaintiffs could not show Wal-Mart had a common policy of discriminating against women. Instead, the company allowed individual store managers to decide on pay levels and promotions, the justices said.
"In a company of Wal-Mart's size and geographical scope, it is quite unbelievable that all managers would exercise their discretion in a common way without some common direction," said Justice Antonin Scalia. Because class actions are suitable for resolving disputes that turn on a common issue, this lawsuit cannot go forward, Scalia said.
While the court's liberals disagreed on this point, they agreed with Scalia that the class-action claim was flawed because it sought individual awards of back pay for the women. All nine justices said this class-action suit could not seek monetary damages for the women workers.
Scalia's opinion strongly suggested that such claims cannot proceed as a single class-action suit unless the plaintiffs can point to a company policy of discriminating against certain employees.
In a partial dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said there was enough evidence of systematic sex discrimination to allow the suit to proceed, though not for damages. "Women fill 70% of the hourly jobs in the retailer's stores, but make up only 33% of the management employees," she wrote. "The higher one looks in the organization, the lower the percentage of women."more.
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