9th Cir. OKs Wal-Mart Class Action

Today the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court's certification of a class action in a sex discrimination case against Wal-Mart. Dukes v. Wal-Mart, Inc., No. 04-16688 (9th Cir. Feb. 6, 2007), court website.

The class is estimated to include more than 1.5 million women -- any woman who has worked for any Wal-Mart store in the United States in a range of positions ("from part-time, entry-level, hourly employees to salaried managers") from Dec. 26, 1998, to present. Plaintiffs seek class-wide injunctive and declaratory relief, as well as lost pay and punitive damages.

Judge Pregerson wrote the majority opinion; Judge Kleinfeld dissented.

The plaintiffs' website for the class is here. The homepage suggests that readers might be interested in a similar case against Costco, which has its own website. The litigation teams are very similar for the two cases (there are 7 firms working on the Wal-Mart case and 5 for the Costco case).