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Employment Class Actions Survive Despite Wal-Mart Ruling

Written by Moira Herbst; Editing by Martha Graybow and Tim Dobbyn) Wednesday, 13 July 2011 23:00

employment class action The end of the road for a class-action discrimination lawsuit brought by female employees of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has not spelled doom for employment lawsuits facing other big U.S. companies.

A landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision last month siding with the world’s largest retailer was widely seen as a blow to many other would-be class-action plaintiffs.

But some employment class-action lawsuits, particularly those involving disputes over overtime and other wage-and-hour claims, are surviving and have even been strengthened by the ruling, as judges have issued opinions arguing the Wal-Mart decision does not apply to a given case.

The Wal-Mart case centered on whether a group of up to 1.5 million current and former workers at the retailer, who contended they were paid less than men and denied promotions, was properly certified as a class. The Supreme Court said the women could not sue jointly, finding they did not have enough in common to band together.

Plaintiffs who sue en masse have more power, because they can pool resources and combine claims into one lawsuit. Following the Supreme Court’s June 20 ruling, Wal-Mart workers will now have to sue in smaller groups or as individuals.

In the past three weeks, courts and attorneys have rushed to interpret the ruling. A day after the decision, a federal judge in New York ruled that about 600 employees of Tyco International Ltd unit SimplexGrinnell can sue jointly on their claims that they were underpaid.

On June 29, a federal judge in Florida denied Starbucks Corp.’s attempt to decertify a class of more than 700 workers in a lawsuit on overtime pay, saying there were enough similarities to justify keeping class members together.

That same week, a federal judge in California denied trucking company C.R. England Inc.’s attempt to decertify a class of up to 1,000 drivers in a wage-and-hour class action, and a federal judge in Ohio upheld class certification in a similar case against nursing home company HCR ManorCare.

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