Walmart Asks Supreme Court to Block Discrimination Suit

Walmart has recently asked the Supreme Court to overturn a court ruling from 2001 that would allow 1.5 million women who have been employed by the company to join together in a gender discrimination class action lawsuit.

Gender discrimination lawsuits are said to usually be brought to court by one employee at a time, but the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco voted 6 to 5 to uphold the class action status of the lawsuit originally filed by six women back in 2001. The lawsuit claims that Walmart has engaged in gender discrimination by paying female employees less than male employees and passing women over for promotions that ultimately were given to men, despite women’s higher performance ratings.

If this lawsuit is not blocked by the Supreme Court, it will be the largest class-action employment lawsuit in history. California has upheld the creation of the massive class of plaintiffs, which include all women who have worked in any of Walmart’s 3,400 stores across the country from 1998 to present. Lawyers for Walmart have stated that the class action process will undercut Walmart’s ability to defend itself against charges that they intentionally discriminated against each of the 1.5 million women who are plaintiffs in this case, who, as the chief judge added have “held a multitude of jobs, at different levels of Walmart’s hierarchy, for variable lengths of time, in 3,400 stores, sprinkled across 50 states, with a kaleidoscope of supervisors (male and female), subject to a variety of regional policies that all differed depending on each class member’s job, location and period of employment.”

A decision by the justices seeing over this case is not expected until sometime next year so it may very well be decided that the 1.5 million women will not be able to sue Walmart as part of a class action lawsuit. However, if all, or even a percentage of these women decide to sue Walmart on their own for discrimination, Walmart could find themselves in court quite often for a lengthy period of time for each lawsuit.

Did you enjoy this article? Share it!

Related Posts:

• None yet, check back soon!

Subscribe to Woman Tribune

Subscribe to Woman Tribune by RSS or enter your email below to receive email updates.

Hot Stories From Around the Web

Loading...

About the Author: Holly Ord

In addition to being the Founder and Editor of Woman Tribune, Holly Ord is a freelance writer, web designer and developer, feminist activist and blogger, and hopeless video game addict. She lives in Northeastern Pennsylvania and has been blogging on liberal politics and gender equality on her personal website, Menstrual Poetry since 2007.

Homepage | Twitter