Wal-Mart Wins Gender Bias Suit

Shares of Walmart ($WMT) are currently going for less than 12 times this year’s earnings estimate. The stock has been stuck in a wide trading range for several years.

The company, however, got a big boost today when the Supreme Court tossed out a gender bias suit brought against Walmart. Don’t ask me what the logic was behind this, but “the suit aimed to cover every woman who worked at the retailer’s Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club’s stores at any point since December 1998, including those not hired until years after the suit was filed.”

Every woman hired? The suit was originally brought by six women but the class would cover an estimated 1.5 million workers. The Financial Times reports:

In rejecting the class action, the Supreme Court justices said the plaintiffs’ lawyers had failed to identify a common corporate policy that led to gender discrimination against workers at Walmart stores across the country.

The justices were ruling only on the viability of the class action and not on the merits of the accusations levelled at Walmart. The case had taken a decade to reach the country’s highest court.

I don’t have much to say about Walmart’s policies but I’m glad to see the Supreme Court reject this suit. These overly-broad lawsuits are damaging for business and they create too much uncertainty for shareholders.

Posted by on June 20th, 2011 at 12:08 pm


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