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Supreme Court Shoots Down WalMart Discrimination Suit

Posted by: Linda Carbonell on June 20, 2011.

06-20-2011 by Linda S. Carbonell

United States Supreme Court

The United States Supreme Court has blocked the class action suit brought by 1.5 million women against retail giant WalMart for discrimination against female employees.

One the first issue, the scope of the class action suit, the nine justices were unanimous in their belief that the suit lumped together too many issues, making it impossible to determine specific issues. The principle problem was the issue of back pay. There are too many plaintiffs involved for any broad spectrum decision about possible recovery of back pay.

On the second issue, the court was split 5-4. Again, the decision said the class action suit was too broad, particularly in regards to the presence or absence of a corporate-wide policy of discrimination. WalMart has maintained all along that there is no corporate-wide policy and the suits should be brought against individual stores and their managers. The evidence provided so far appears to backup WalMart’s claim that there is not enough holding together the various complaints of discrimination to support a class action suit involving 1.5 million women.

As much as this decision will be decried as further discrimination against women, the facts do favor WalMart on this suit. There are stores with female managers. There are stores which provide promotions and opportunities equally based on merit. The class action suit was a bad idea from the beginning. As hard as it is to work through the courts for any lawsuit, it would have been much better handled on a store-by-store basis. Then, when it becomes clear that WalMart’s corporate suits failed to properly monitor their store management, a class action suit might be possible. WalMart has a lot of employment problems, starting with the corporate policy of hiring as many employees as possible only part-time to avoid providing benefits, but until the groundwork is laid that shows where the corporate responsibility lies, a class action suit is not the answer.