Judge rules against sex-bias lawsuit by ex-Walmart workers

A federal judge in Miami has ruled that three women suing Walmart Inc. on claims of sex bias in denying them raises and promotions didn’t present enough evidence for the case to proceed to trial.

However, in granting the Bentonville retailer’s motion for summary judgment Friday, Judge Robert N. Scola in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida wrote that the plaintiffs’ evidence “certainly indicates that something was indeed rotten within the corporate culture at Walmart.”

That evidence includes a report by a statistics expert that was not disclosed by the court’s deadline and thus deemed inadmissible for consideration, according to Scola’s order. Since the report contained “the only statistical evidence the Plaintiffs submit in support of their disparate impact claims, those claims cannot survive summary judgment,” Scola wrote.

A summary judgment motion contends that all necessary factual issues are settled or so one-sided they need not be tried, according to The People’s Law Dictionary. The suit, Kathleen Forbes and others v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., was scheduled for trial on Sept. 16.

Besides Forbes, who worked for Walmart from 1990 to 2006, the other plaintiffs are Linda Ray, a Walmart employee from 1996 to 2005; and Edna Remington, who

worked for the retailer from 1993 to 2004. The women were originally part of the 1.5 million-member class in the landmark case Betty Dukes et al v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. ended by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011.

Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove said Monday that the retailer “is pleased the court found that the three plaintiffs failed to demonstrate they had been discriminated against in pay or promotion based on their gender.”

Hargrove said Walmart continues to dispute such claims by former employees. “Walmart has had a strong policy against discrimination in place for many years, and the allegations are not representative of the positive experiences millions of women have had working at our company,” he said.

An attempt Monday afternoon to reach Lindsey Wagner, an attorney with

Scott Wagner & Associates law firm who represents the plaintiffs, was unsuccessful.

Scola is the same judge who in July granted Walmart’s motion to sever the claims of 79 women represented in two other spinoff lawsuits from the Dukes case. This means each woman represented in those lawsuits must file an individual amended complaint, and the original suits are now closed.

Along with other members of the certified class in the Dukes case, the women in the severed lawsuits accused the company of violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination against workers based on their race, religion, ethnicity or sex. They asked for damages including back pay.

Betty Dukes, who died in 2017, was a greeter at a Walmart store in California when she and five other employees sued the retailer in 2001. The women claimed they were paid less than male co-workers and passed over for raises and promotions that went to less-qualified

men.

Their fight ended June 20, 2011, when the Supreme Court reversed the class-certification order. The justices ruled unanimously that the plaintiffs failed to prove a pattern of sex discrimination at Walmart, and therefore the suit didn’t meet the standards for class certification.

They also ruled 5-4 that the plaintiffs didn’t have enough in common to constitute a class.

Women from that class — the largest in U.S. history — continue to sue Walmart individually or in small groups.

Scola’s latest order concluded with his opinion that it is “only a matter of time before Plaintiffs’ counsel manages to get it right with one of the dozens of cases now pending before the Court. No doubt, in the right case and with the right advocacy, a female Walmart employee with better facts should be able to assemble a powerful case of gender discrimination that these Plaintiffs allege has plagued the entire Walmart operation for many years.”