US Supreme Court hears Wal-Mart discrimination case

Mar 29, 2011, 17:14 GMT

Washington - The US Supreme Court heard Tuesday the case brought by female Wal-Mart employees who assert the world's largest retailer routinely favoured male counterparts for promotion and better wages.

The long-running discrimination case could have far-reaching ramifications for US businesses and civil rights advocates. The question before the court is whether the large group can collectively sue Wal-Mart for damages - a class-action lawsuit - or whether they must sue individually.

A victory for the female workers could lead to more than 1 million women joining the lawsuit against Wal-Mart, and could prompt similar class-action lawsuits by other groups of women and minorities who believe they have been discriminated against by their employers.

Those potential consequences have led business associations and civil-rights groups to line up on opposite sides of the case, filing briefs outlining their positions in support or opposition with the Supreme Court's nine justices.

Wal-Mart acknowledges there have been individual cases of discrimination, but insists there is no pattern across the company. They argue the women's complaints are too different to be combined in one lawsuit that could be worth billions of dollars in damages.

The Supreme Court is not expected to rule on the case until later this year. A ruling would only address whether the lawsuit can continue as a class action, but not the underlying questions of workplace discrimination, which are yet to be argued in a trial court.

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