Too Big To Be Sued?

About a decade ago, a group of female employees of Wal-Mart filed a sex discrimination class action against the company, beginning the case known as Dukes v. Wal-Mart. It now involves more than a million current and former female employees and is easily the largest employment discrimination lawsuit in American history. Wal-Mart has now asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review this case — not based on whether discrimination occurred but based on whether it’s permissible for a case involving so many women can proceed as a class action.

Wal-Mart contends that even if discrimination occurred in some of its stores, that doesn’t mean there was discrimination at the thousands of stores it has nationwide. Wal-Mart further argues that the female employees who claim they were discriminated against because of pay and promotion discrepancies should have to file individual claims against the company, not proceed in one jumbo class action, because each Wal-Mart store operates as a separate entity. The female employees allege that Wal-Mart has a common set of personnel policies at all of its stores.

There’s no question that this case is a big one, not just in terms of the huge nature of Wal-Mart and not just in terms of the number of women involved but in terms of the potential damages that could recover against Wal-Mart, estimated to be a minimum of one billion dollars. The case is also likely to set guidelines for other types of class actions.

Stay tuned for further developments in this significant case.