Female employees of Wal-Mart Stores
Inc. who claim the company discriminated against them in
allotting pay and promotions since 1998 may pursue their cases as
a group, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Martin Jenkins in San
Francisco creates the largest civil rights class action ever
certified against a private employer, lawyers for the employees
said.
“We finally have a case that’s big enough to take on Wal-
Mart,” said Joe Sellers, a Washington attorney for the women.
“We have the benefit of the collective strength of 1.6 million
women.” The suit could yield an award of more than $1 billion in
back pay alone, he said, almost double the largest employment
discrimination settlement in U.S. history.
Current and former female employees allege in their suit
that Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest
retailer and the largest private employer in the U.S., denies its
female employees the same level of pay and advancement
opportunities available to male employees. Six current and former
employees will lead the suit on behalf of the class, Jenkins
ruled.
Class certification is “the watershed event in
litigation,” said Adam Klein, a lawyer who represents employees
in class-action discrimination suits. He is representing New York
employees of Wal-Mart in a wage and hour dispute that he says is
“unrelated” to the sex-bias class action.
Wal-Mart Plans Appeal
“It becomes a bet-the-ranch case where eventually, if the
plaintiffs were to prevail in all their claims, they could enter
a judgment in the many billions,” he said of the California
case.
Wal-Mart plans to appeal the ruling, spokeswoman Mona
Williams said.
“Let’s keep in mind that today’s ruling has nothing to do
with the merits of the case,” Williams said. “Judge Jenkins is
simply saying he thinks it meets the legal requirements necessary
to move forward as a class action.”
The billion-dollar figure raised by Sellers covers the
difference between what the women earned and what they should
have earned during the class period, Klein said.
“They’ll look at a statistical analysis and account for
title, tenure and probably starting wage rate, and look to see
whether there’s a difference,” Klein said of how the court would
analyze the alleged losses suffered by the Wal-Mart employees.
“If there’s a residual disparity, it’s decided that that’s based
on the gender of the person.”
Bloomberg News
