This story from the Washington Post:
As many as 1.5 million current and former female workers could have been included in the class suing Wal-Mart, the world’s largest private employer, and the company faced the possibility of owing billions of dollars in back pay. But the court’s conservatives said the women had not proved they had suffered from a common policy of discrimination.
The case was the most important of the term for corporate interests, some of which face the same kind of class-action suits filed by female employees. More than 20 of the country’s largest companies filed a brief supporting Wal-Mart in the case.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the court’s liberals, who include the court’s two other female justices, said the women should have been given the chance to prove their case. Ginsburg said there was ample evidence that there were problems at Wal-Mart, where, when the suit was filed, women held 70 percent of the hourly jobs but made up only 33 percent of management employees. “The court, however, disqualifies the class at the starting gate,” she wrote in dissent.
What a surprise. Reagan-Bush judges Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy, Alito and Roberts voted for WalMart; Clinton-Obama judges Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan for the women. This one will be back, that’s for sure.
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