Wal-Mart Gets High Court Review in Million-Worker Bias Case
The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Wal-Mart can face a huge bias lawsuit. The Court will review a decision that allows one suit to cover the claims of all of the women who have worked at Wal-Mart since 2001. If the court allows it to proceed, the lawsuit would be the largest employment class action suit in United States history, and could potentially cost Wal-Mart billions of dollars. The ruling will have effects on cases currently in the courts now. Companies like Bank of America and Microsoft had urged the Supreme Court to decide the class action question, saying that the ruling that allowed the class action was too broad. The 9th Circuit of Appeals said that one large suit was better than millions of individual suits. Parties on both sides of the issue said they welcomed the Supreme Court's review. The Court is expected to hear arguments early next year.
See "Wal-Mart Gets High Court Review in Million-Worker Bias Case", Greg Stohr, Bloomberg News, December 5, 2010