• 22
  • June
    2011

At the beginning of April, we wrote a post about the lawsuit that Walmart was facing. The class action sex discrimination lawsuit that was filed against the company was the largest job discrimination case that was ever filed.

The lawsuit started in California and summarized more than 10 years of sexual harassment and discrimination toward female workers across the country. Sadly, the U.S. Supreme Court recently threw the lawsuit out.

The justices were split 5-4, but the majority sided with Walmart, stating that the lawyers failed to show a company-wide policy of discrimination. If the lawsuit had been allowed to proceed, as many as one million female workers could have benefitted from the court's ruling.

Instead, the women and their lawyers will need to approach the court in a new direction.

According to an article in Bloomberg, four of the justices were willing to let the case return to a lower court to try proving their case again, this time using a different legal theory.

Thankfully, neither the women nor their lawyers are giving up. The lawyers plan to continue pushing their cases through court. This time, the cases will be presented on behalf of individual workers or smaller groups of workers whose stories have more in common.

One of the lead attorneys stated that the case is not over. "Wal-Mart is not off the hook. There are thousands of claims of discrimination that remain to be filed." If the original lawsuit had been successful, Walmart could have lost billions of dollars. Given the number of female employees who came forward with compelling evidence, the company could still lose millions, if not more, if the lawyers are successful with their subsequent lawsuits.

Source: Bloomberg, "Wal-Mart Million-Worker Bias Suit Thrown Out by High Court," Greg Stohr, 20 June 2011