Wal-Mart Gets Backing From 19 Companies at U.S. Supreme Court
Intel Corp., Altria Group Inc., Bank of America Corp. and 16 other companies called on the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. appeal that seeks to limit class-action lawsuits by workers.
Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, last month asked the high court to block female employees from suing on behalf of as many as 1.5 million women. The case would be the largest gender-bias suit against a private employer in U.S. history.
Should the court agree to hear the case, it would likely become the most significant business dispute before the justices. Robin Conrad, who heads the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s litigation arm, this week called the dispute the “800-pound gorilla” of the court’s 2010-11 docket. The court is likely to say later this year whether it will hear arguments.
The companies, which also include Microsoft Corp. and General Electric Co., argued that judicial approval of a class action puts enormous pressure on defendants to settle, even if the claim is frivolous.
“Because the specter of potentially enormous class-wide liability compels defendants to settle even meritless claims, class certification decisions are often tantamount to a decision on the merits,” 18 of the companies argued. Intel filed a separate brief, making similar arguments.
The other companies signing the brief were Chrysler Group LLC, Cigna Corp., Del Monte Foods Co., Dole Food Co., Dollar General Corp., DuPont Co., Hewlett-Packard Co., Kimberly-Clark Corp., McKesson Corp., PepsiCo Inc., Tyson Foods Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc., United Parcel Service Inc. and Williams Cos.
Same Jobs
Wal-Mart is accused in the 2001 suit of paying women less than men for the same jobs and giving female workers fewer promotions. In April, a federal appeals court ruled 6-5 that the case could proceed as a class action on behalf of women who worked at Wal-Mart since 2001.
Wal-Mart contends the claims of workers around the country are too diverse to proceed as a single case under the rules that govern federal lawsuits.
Brad Seligman, an attorney for the workers, said last month that “only the size of the case is unusual, and that is a product of Wal-Mart’s size and the breadth of the discrimination we documented.”
The case is Wal-Mart Stores v. Dukes, 10-277.
To contact the reporter on this story: Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net.
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