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June 20, 2011 in Region
Supreme Court limits Wal-Mart sex bias case
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today blocked a massive sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of female employees in a decision that makes it harder to mount large-scale bias claims against the nation’s biggest companies.
The justices all agreed that the lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. could not proceed as a class action in its current form, reversing a decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. By a 5-4 vote along ideological lines, the court said there were too many women in too many jobs at Wal-Mart to wrap into one lawsuit.
The lawsuit could have involved up to 1.6 million women, with Wal-Mart facing potentially billions of dollars in damages.
Now, the handful of women who brought the case may pursue their claims on their own, with much less money at stake and less pressure on Wal-Mart to settle. Two of the named plaintiffs, Christine Kwapnoski and Betty Dukes, attended the argument. Kwapnoski is an assistant manager at a Sam’s Club in Concord, Calif. Dukes is a greeter at the Walmart in Pittsburg, Calif.
In a statement, Wal-Mart said, “The court today unanimously rejected class certification and, as the majority made clear, the plaintiffs’ claims were worlds away from showing a companywide discriminatory pay and promotion policy.”
Dukes and Kwapnoski said they were disappointed in the ruling, but vowed to push ahead with their claims. Both women spoke on a conference call with reporters.
“We still are determined to go forward to present our case in court. We believe we will prevail there,” Dukes said.
“All I have to say is when I go back to work tomorrow, I’m going to let them know we are still fighting,” Kwapnoski.
Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, said “the court has told employers that they can rest easy, knowing that the bigger and more powerful they are, the less likely their employees will be able to join together to secure their rights.”
The high court’s majority agreed with Wal-Mart’s argument that being forced to defend the treatment of female employees regardless of the jobs they hold or where they work is unfair.
Justice Antonin Scalia’s opinion for the court’s conservative majority said there need to be common elements tying together “literally millions of employment decisions at once.”
But Scalia said that in the lawsuit against the nation’s largest private employer, “That is entirely absent here.”
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, writing for the court’s four liberal justices, said there was more than enough uniting the claims. “Wal-Mart’s delegation of discretion over pay and promotions is a policy uniform throughout all stores,” Ginsburg said.
Business interests lined up with Wal-Mart while civil rights, women’s and consumer groups have sided with the women plaintiffs.
Both sides have painted the case as extremely consequential. The business community has said that a ruling for the women would lead to a flood of class-action lawsuits based on vague evidence. Supporters of the women feared that a decision in favor of Wal-Mart could remove a valuable weapon for fighting all sorts of discrimination.
Said Greenberger: “The women of Wal-Mart, together with women everywhere, will now face a far steeper road to challenge and correct pay and other forms of discrimination in the workplace.”
The lawsuit, citing what are now dated figures from 2001, said that women are grossly underrepresented among managers, holding just 14 percent of store manager positions compared with more than 80 percent of lower-ranking supervisory jobs that are paid by the hour. Wal-Mart responded that women in its retail stores made up two-thirds of all employees and two-thirds of all managers in 2001.
The company also has said its policies prohibit discrimination and that it has taken steps since the suit was filed to address problems, including posting job openings electronically.
© Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Antsy toddler kicked off plane at Sea-Tac 
fishinjay on June 20 at 10:01 a.m.
What?!? How can anybody argue that it’s OK to throw somebody in jail without them having legal representation? If they are worried about “asymetrical representation” then provide legal representation for both sides.
gmorton on June 20 at 10:28 a.m.
fishinjay wrote,
“What?!? How can anybody argue that it’s OK to throw somebody in jail without them having legal representation?”
The defendant was jailed for contempt of court, fish. Judges do that all the time; no trial is necessary.
This was a civil case – a dispute between two private parties. Who should provide these lawyers – taxpayers?
The first sentence of that story is also misleading. It reads, “A sharply divided Supreme Court today refused to require states to provide lawyers for poor people in civil cases involving incarceration . . .”
The Court was not “sharply divided” in that point. It was unanimous. It was sharply divided on the result, which turned on a different issue.
liberal_in_right_wing_land on June 20 at 10:50 a.m.
I think we have officially became the United States of Corporate America.
Pretty obvious workers and the middle class have no rights anymore, its all about the giant corporations and the people running them to make as much money as possible and screw everyone else in the process.
gmorton on June 20 at 10:57 a.m.
liberal_in_right_wing_land wrote,
“Pretty obvious workers and the middle class have no rights anymore . . .”
Workers and the “middle class” never did have any “rights” to any particular job, any particular wage, or that their wages be equal to someone else’s. Neither did anyone else have such rights. Those are pseudo-rights concocted by the Left.
liberal_in_right_wing_land on June 20 at 11:13 a.m.
Obviously gmorton, like most tea bagging republicans, you dont know how countries history and laws very well. So we have no laws on the books that require jobs to pay equal pay no matter you are a woman, black, gay, religion, hispanic, asian or disabled? We have no laws requiring minimum pay? We have no laws on the books giving workers rights at all meaning companies ca require workers to work 100 hours a day with no safety or rights to benefits?
These are all just “fake” rights we lefties have made up? No, its just the history stupid tea baggers ignore.
gmorton on June 20 at 11:32 a.m.
liberal_in_right_wing_land wrote,
“So we have no laws on the books that require jobs to pay equal pay no matter you are a woman, black, gay, religion, hispanic, asian or disabled? We have no laws requiring minimum pay?”
You bet we do. Those are the pseudo-rights I mentioned (also known as “fiat rights” or “frights”), i.e., “rights” conjured from thin air by decree of some lawgiver.
“We have no laws on the books giving workers rights at all meaning companies ca require workers to work 100 hours a day with no safety or rights to benefits?”
Er, false premise, liberal. No company can “require” anyone to work even one hour, much less 100. Anyone dissatisfied with the working conditions or wages a prospective employer offers is perfectly free to refuse the job, or quit.
“These are all just “fake” rights we lefties have made up?”
Yes. Real rights are not “given” by gummint. Perhaps this will help:
http://www.freespokane.net/?page_id=25
fishinjay on June 20 at 12:35 p.m.
gmorto, I don’t care who pays for it. I don’t buy the argument that just because it’s expensive people shouldn’t have equal access to competent legal representation, especially when the stakes involve spending a year in prison.
Fine, jail him for contempt of court but give him the opportunity to fight it. In this case a lawyer could have argued that inability to pay wasn’t contempt because it was beyond his control. THEN decide if the argument holds water or if he deserved to sit in prison for a year. So much for due process. Any judge can jail you for months or years without any recourse for the accused, simply because they feel you’re being contemptuous. Sounds like 21st century American justice to me….
JayNW on June 20 at 1:11 p.m.
To “liberalinrightwingland”- you are a total hypocrit when you call someone a “teabagger.” That is a very rude, very demeaning, very offensive, derrogitory term used against gay people. If you really are a liberal, who stands up against discrimination - then you should stop using that word. I would say that to anyone who uses any derogatory word toward another person.
Someone who truly fights for equal rights and stands up against discrimination doesn’t go around calling others names like that.
And I would like to submit to the Spokesman, that if that word is used, the post should be flagged just as it would if someone used the F word, the N word etc. There is no place for that kind of language. Freedom of speech or not, would the Spokesman let a post stand if we used racial slurs against each other?
liberal_in_right_wing_land on June 20 at 1:22 p.m.
JayNW, I am gay, doesn’t offend me in the slightest…..and also that is a word describing a politic group of people and a member of the so-called tea party. Whats demeaning about that?
To compare calling people a tea bagger is nothing to be called the words you described, and the Spokesman Review has done the right thing in not removing posts.
Also, its sad you are picking out the word tea bagger to talk about when this article is about something way more important, try sticking to topic.
detroitdude on June 20 at 1:32 p.m.
Proud to say I have not shopped at Wal-Mart in nearly 4 years :-D
greenlibertarian on June 20 at 1:50 p.m.
Once again, for the utterly ignorant such as JayNW:
teabagger - a person who protests President Obama’s tax policies and stimulus package, often through local demonstrations known as “Tea Party” protests (in allusion to the Boston Tea Party of 1773.)
-New Oxford American Dictionary, 2009.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/unfriend-named-new-oxford-american-dictionarys-2009-word-of-the-year-70201607.html
Pay attention, we’ve been over this a 100 times.
Granted, it’s a little odd the Taxed Enough Already dolts chose to use the the word “teabag”, mail teabags to Congresscritters, hang teabags from their hats at protests and such, invoke the Boston teaparty, since teabags weren’t invented until the early 20th century, but hey, no one’s ever said these teabaggers have a lick of sense.
And Herman Cain is a teabagger AND a crackpot.
greenlibertarian on June 20 at 1:55 p.m.
Oh, and JayNW, you are deficient on understanding Freedom of Speech. It’s got NOTHING to do with what the S/R chooses to censor or not on ITS PRIVATE CORPORATE OWNED commenting system.
Freedom of Speech is a natural right of US Citizens as protected by the Constitution which declares THE GOVERNMENT may not infringe upon your natural right to free speech.
gmorton on June 20 at 4:30 p.m.
fishinjay wrote,
“Any judge can jail you for months or years without any recourse for the accused . . .”
Oh, no. The accused always has recourse – to comply with whatever order he has disobeyed. The person jailed “holds his own keys to the cell,” as the saying goes. When he agrees to comply he’ll be released immediately.
And the time to argue hardship is at the trial. The judge will normally approve some sort of payment plan.
gmorton on June 20 at 4:33 p.m.
greenlibertarian wrote,
“Freedom of Speech is a natural right of US Citizens as protected by the Constitution which declares THE GOVERNMENT may not infringe upon your natural right to free speech.”
That point cannot be repeated often enough. Amazing how few people grasp it.
Thayne on June 20 at 5:24 p.m.
I’m with you detroitdude, I haven’t set foot in a walmart in over 6 years - and yet I’ve survived. I’m shocked, just shocked that scotus sided with big corporation - NOT. I sure would be interested in seeing how much money the justices received for their helping chinamart dodge this bullet.
hawken on June 20 at 5:39 p.m.
Not only did the unanimous decision confirm and reject the faulty legal issues involved in the case, it was good for our economy as well.
I’m sure that Walmart will be shutting down one of their several stores in Spokane because a few liberals refuse to shop there.
PlanB on June 20 at 5:56 p.m.
I’m guessing that this class action was dreamed up and hyped by attorneys looking for job security and a big paycheck, just like most class actions. IF the case had been allowed to continue, and IF Walmart lost, and IF damages were actually collected, the women would get virtually nothing and the lawyers would be laughing all the way to the bank. And back.
gmorton on June 20 at 7:11 p.m.
PlanB wrote,
“IF the case had been allowed to continue, and IF Walmart lost, and IF damages were actually collected, the women would get virtually nothing and the lawyers would be laughing all the way to the bank. And back.”
You nailed it, PlanB. I was a “plaintiff” in a class action suit a couple years ago, against Expedia Travel Service. I became a plaintiff merely by having booked a hotel room through Expedia (for which I had no complaints, either against the hotel or Expedia). I remained a plaintiff even after emailing the law firm and directing them to exclude me from this scam.
And I won!
What did I win?
$2.86. The shysters who cooked up this turkey scored $10 million.
mtharves on June 20 at 7:14 p.m.
I was dragged into a Walmart against my will 10 years ago, have never been back, and never will.
detroitdude on June 20 at 7:55 p.m.
“I’m sure that Walmart will be shutting down one of their several stores in Spokane because a few liberals refuse to shop there.”
Corporations like Wal-Mart are precisely the type of thing that undermines our society. Don’t start with that BS that “because they employ so many” they are “good for the economy”. They employee very many people, at a piss poor wage for most of them. Not to mention all of the locally owned businesses they drove out of business by coming to town. It may not be as evident here, but look at any town with 30,000 people and then check out their “Main Street” or commercial district, you will be confronted with many empty storefronts.
hawken on June 20 at 7:59 p.m.
I’ve been informed through the US mail, that I have been a party to several “class action suits” in the past. Every time, the package I receive has 10 pages or more of legalese which I never read beyond the first or second page.
The most recent I received was against Sprint for overcharging. I’ve had a Sprint cell phone, unlimited air-time for years @ $59/month. The plan is no longer available. I get a call from Sprint at least once a month to “upgrade” as they call it. I simply tell them I am happy and I keep the plan. As long as I choose to keep it, it’s mine.
All of the packages I get in the mail concerning “class actions, “all say the same basic thing…. “If you want to be removed from this class action suit and pursue your own legal remedies, you must notify us by _________ [date certain].
I have never given them a second thought and I have never, ever received a penny.
There are major law firms that traffic in so-called “class action suits.”
Now that the USSC has thrown this one out, these blood sucking attorneys will drop their previous clients and move on to other suckers.
It’s all a numbers game that is designed to make millions for the attorneys.
nslopeofw on June 20 at 9:08 p.m.
JayNW,
You have to understand “Liberal in a right wing land”. The bigotry and racism are for other people, not him (her). Because he is gay, he has a right to be as offensive as he wants. If you are offensive, you are a bigot/racist/sexist/whatever. Also, if you are not a liberal, you are obviously a hard core white supremist, and deserve all the hate he can muster.
There is NO tolerance for you in any way (from L_I_A_R_W_L) unless you are a liberal. No matter how many times he has been asked to stop using that term, he continues, because it represents the hatred he has for you and me because we are different from him. I suggest ignoring his rantings, as he will always hate. He cant help it. Of course, by pointing out the obvious, i’m sure that i’m bad, and all the other liberals will now come out of the woodwork to defend his use of the term.
nslopeofw on June 20 at 9:14 p.m.
I’m not a liberal, and i WONT shop at walmart, either. They are underhanded, and evil as a company. They really are anti-labor, and anti-American. There is a big difference between walmart and any other company in the way they treat employee’s. Just look at the number of legit lawsuits that have been filed over the last 10 years. Its a walmart corporate philosophy to be as dirty as they are, and this is one company that should be banned in the US.
PlanB on June 20 at 10:48 p.m.
gmorton, thanks, and to clarify I am HIGHLY supportive of workers rights but these class actions are a travesty. I’ve never heard of a class action that benefits anyone other than attorneys.
If the women have truly been victims of discrimination, they can sue and should. I do have a problem with corporations with big pockets being protected by the courts by delaying action and other legal maneuvering. But I don’t think that is the case here.
And although I don’t shop there very much, I don’t have a big problem with Walmart. Seems like a American success story to me. They keep costs down by having tight controls on their distributions costs.