SAN FRANCISCO — Wal-Mart Stores has filed a motion in U.S. District Court here to dismiss a reformulated lawsuit alleging gender discrimination toward women employed by the retailer in California.
Wal-Mart asked for a May hearing for its dismissal motion.
The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer reportedly contends the reformulated lawsuit actually seeks to cover all women employed by Wal-Mart in any region, not just the 45,000 or so female employees in California. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a claim last June for a class-action suit on behalf of all female employees nationally, saying they did not have enough in common to be lumped together in a single suit.
According to a Wal-Mart attorney quoted by Reuters, "This attempt to cobble back together the original class badly misses the point. Without the 'glue' of a common policy or practice holding individual claims together, there is no justification for adjudicating them collectively — and plaintiffs still fail to allege any such 'glue.' "
An attorney for the plaintiffs was quoted as saying the new suit is much different than the original one, relying on specific discriminatory statements made by district and regional managers rather than on nationwide statistical patterns and anecdotal evidence.
A Wal-Mart spokesperson could not be reached for comment.
