Title:
Why Wal-Mart Won a Big Ruling in Sex Discrimination
Case
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
In the American legal system, people generally bring
civil claims as individuals. But if a lot of people
have similar claims, they may try to bring a class
action lawsuit.
Cornell University law professor Michael Dorf says a
class action "allows a large group of people to
bring their individual claims together as a group."
But groups need permission to bring a class action,
and that can be denied. That happened to a million
and a half current and former employees of America's
largest private employer. The women accuse Wal-Mart
of discriminating against female employees in its
stores. But the United States Supreme Court voted to
block a huge class action against Wal-Mart in
federal court. The women were seeking billions of
dollars. They say men were given more pay and more
chances to move up in the company. They accuse
Wal-Mart of violating part of a federal law, the
Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty-four. The case
started about ten years ago. A federal district
court in California agreed that the case could go
forward as a class action. Wal-Mart again lost in a
federal appeals court. But, on June twentieth,
Wal-Mart won its appeal in the nation's highest
court.
Professor Dorf -- who was not involved in the case
-- says the justices disagreed about whether there
was a "common question." He says most of the
justices found that Wal-Mart was not being accused
of one kind of discrimination or one policy, but
many different acts. "The key to being able to bring
a class action here, and the issue that divided our
Supreme Court, was whether all of these different
claims -- by over a million people -- had enough in
common to justify a single class action." Wal-Mart
has a policy barring discrimination. But the women
accused the company of unfair policies and
permitting bad behavior by some store managers.
The court was divided five to four in its ruling.
Yet all nine justices agreed that the case could not
go forward. The women needed to meet additional
legal requirements because they were seeking payment
for harm they say was done. All the justices agreed
these requirements had not been met. Boston
University law professor Michael Harper says the
decision was widely expected. He says the class
action failed because it did not target a single
action or policy by Wal-Mart. But the ruling does
not bar the women from bringing individual cases.
They can also seek class actions at the state level.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
