Many people thought this case was over but the federal judge in North Carolina felt otherwise.

Wal-Mart Women Win Right to Proceed With Discrimination Class Action

Victoria Pynchon, Contributor

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday, a trial level federal court in Northern California denied Wal-Mart’s motion to dismiss a statewide class action suit whose nationwide sibling was defeated by a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling last year.

See Supreme Court Rules for Wal-Mart

What's Good for Women is Good for Wal-Mart

Victoria Pynchon

Contributor

Do We Need a Brown v. Board of Education for Women?

Victoria Pynchon

Contributor

Judge Charles R. Breyer, of the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, gave the green light for California women to proceed with their pay and promotion discrimination claim against Wal-Mart and its subsidiary Sam’s Club.

See Dukes Not Dead – the Wal-Mart Class Action Continues

Plaintiffs’ counsel Noreen Farrell, executive director of Equal Rights Advocates, said

The women of Wal-Mart have been waiting for more than a decade for their day in court. Sex discrimination in pay and promotion hurts lives and families. We applaud the decision giving our clients the green light to prove their claims.

Wal-Mart’s victory before the Supreme Court was based on the defense argument that Plaintiffs could not prove their case using statistical evidence demonstrating that the discretion given to Wal-Mart managers in granting employees promotional opportunities had a discriminatory effect on Wal-Mart’s women.

See Managerial Pay Discretion Keeps Gender Gap Firmly in Place

Joseph Sellers, of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, PLLC, co-counsel for the plaintiff class says that Plaintiffs have “strong new evidence that Wal-Mart has a long and egregious history of pay and promotion discrimination throughout its California stores.:

The named plaintiffs represent more than 100,000 current or former women employees of California Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores. The class includes women who worked at Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores and were subject to pay and promotion discrimination at any time since Dec. 26, 1998.

Yesterday’s victory does not, however, mean that the class claims will be presented to a jury. The plaintiffs still need to jump through the class certification hoop, a hearing on which Federal Judge Breyer set for February. 15, 2013.

Whether or not the Court will give the Wal-Mart women a valentine or a lump of coal next time is anyone’s guess.