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Wal-Mart Suit Kept As Class-Action

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Bloomberg News

Published: December 12, 2007

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. lost a bid to have an appeals court reconsider its decision to allow 2 million current and former female workers sue as a group with sex-bias claims.

A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court in San Francisco again rejected the company's request to throw out a 2004 lower-court ruling granting class-action status to the lawsuit, the biggest sexual discrimination case in U.S. history. The women accuse Wal-Mart of paying women less than men and giving them fewer promotions.

The court panel, which split 2-to-1 in February in upholding the lower court, Tuesday filed a new majority opinion and dissent. The panel upheld its Feb. 6 decision that a district judge didn't err in granting class certification. It told Wal-Mart it could appeal to the full appeals court for a rehearing of the matter.

"This decision reflects a refinement of the prior panel decision," said Joseph Sellers, an attorney for the women. "If anything, there are fewer issues that Wal-Mart can raise" in a new petition for a rehearing, he said.

Wal-Mart, which is seeking to appeal the 2004 decision with a full nine-judge panel, will now have to restart its request for the rehearing, company attorney Ted Boutros said.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 2001 by six women to include all female workers who worked at Wal-Mart stores from December 1998 to the present, excluding upper management and pharmacy employees. The workers are seeking billions of dollars in back pay and punitive damages, court-ordered changes in Wal-Mart's practices and independent monitoring of company practices.

Class status makes it easier for the group to finance the litigation than if they proceeded individually. The women also have more leverage for a possible settlement.

Wal-Mart has said there is no pay disparity between men and women at most of its stores and that it should be allowed to rebut workers' claims of discrimination individually.

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