civil rights act

Meritless, Massive Class Action Lawsuit Against Wal-Mart Should Be Dismissed

by Hans Bader on March 31, 2011 · 2 comments

in Economy, Employment, Labor, Legal, Regulation

As a lawyer who used to bring class-action discrimination lawsuits for a living, I am puzzled by press sympathy for the massive, meritless class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart. In it, six female employees are suing for billions of dollars in a San Francisco court in the name of at least 500,000 other female employees across the nation whom they have never met and share little in common with other than gender (many of whom are perfectly happy with Wal-Mart).

The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in the case, expressing skepticism about whether the case should be litigated as a class-action, rather than in individual lawsuits by those workers who allege discrimination.

The Justices should be skeptical: the case is being brought as a class-action not because it needs to be brought as a class action to give workers a fair shot, but rather as an excuse to let a liberal San Francisco jury hold Wal-Mart liable for discrimination when most courts in America would dismiss the lawsuit as baseless (and even if they didn’t, a jury in most regions in America would probably rule in favor of Wal-Mart). This lawsuit was filed in San Francisco, which is widely understood to be one of the most anti-employer, anti-business areas of the country, where courts have found employers guilty of discrimination based on junk science.

Lawsuits over discrimination are usually brought on an individual basis, because even victims of discrimination at a big company often have little in common with each other. They work in different stores under different managers, and have different jobs and salaries. Even if one manager is racist or sexist, managers in different stores may be totally fair and unbiased. By contrast, class-actions are supposed to be brought on the basis of a company-wide policy, and the employees are supposed to have a lot in common with each other.

In the Wal-Mart case, there is no company-wide policy of discrimination. In fact, Wal-Mart has written policies against discrimination.

The lawyers for the employees suing Wal-Mart don’t deny that, but claim that it has a practice of giving “discretion” to individual managers about who to hire. But that’s just a fancy way of saying it doesn’t have a policy: that “discretion” is the result of an absence of a comprehensive company policy on how to hire and promote (other than to avoid discrimination).

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Widening a highway is both an environmental AND civil rights issue?

by Michael Fumento on October 23, 2009

in Environment, Health and Illness, Sanctimony

Was a time when “civil rights” meant things like equal opportunities in employment and schooling for racial and ethnic minorities. And “environmental” meant something affecting the environment. But government twists everything that’s good.

Now leaders in Arlington County, Virginia where I live say plans for three high-occupancy toll lanes on the nearby highways will make traffic worse on nearby roads. But it’s not just a transportation problem, they say in a federal lawsuit; it’s also a civil rights issue.

Yes, invoking the Civil Rights Act, they’re requesting a more stringent environmental study of the toll-lane project, citing among the chief concerns the potential effect of air pollution on the health of low-income and minority residents near the highways.

Arlington County Attorney Stephen MacIsaac said the suit was not intended to “create some kind of wedge issue on race or income,” according to the Washington Post. “We’re not just throwing this out there to throw in the race element,” MacIsaac said. “We believe this is an environmental justice issue.”

Right. So cleaning up Lake Erie so that it no longer burns and singing “We shall overcome” with the firehoses turned on you has come down to this.

Pathetic.