Immediate Release
PRESS RELEASE

Immediate Release 12/4/01

NATIONWIDE SEX DISCRIMINATION CASE AGAINST WAL-MART TO STAY IN CALIFORNIA JUDGE REJECTS WAL-MART'S MOTION TO THROW OUT CASE OR TRANSFER IT TO ARKANSAS

A nationwide class action sex discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores will stay in California, federal Judge Martin Jenkins ruled late yesterday in San Francisco. The suit was filed last June by six plaintiffs from across the country, including two women who work and live in California: Betty Dukes, who works at Wal-Mart Store in Pittsburgh, California and Patricia Surgeson, who worked at a Wal-Mart Store in Vacaville, California. The plaintiffs charge Wal-Mart with discriminating against women in promotions, equal pay, and training. Although women comprise more than 70% of Wal-Mart's sales workforce, less than one-third of store management overall at Wal-Mart is female -- a percentage far lower than the number of female management employed by Wal-Mart's major competitors and lower than the percentage employed by its competitors back in 1975.

Wal-Mart sought to dismiss the entire action, or have it transferred to the federal court in the western district of Arkansas - the home of Wal-Mart's headquarters (Bentonville, Arkansas). Wal-Mart argued that because four of the plaintiffs were not from California, the federal court in San Francisco was not a proper venue for the action. They argued for the outright dismissal of the entire case, or transfer to Arkansas, where it claimed venue was proper.

Judge Jenkins rejected Wal-Mart's extreme proposal to throw out or transfer the entire case and described the request as "too harsh" and "not in the interests of justice". He ruled that the non-California plaintiffs lacked proper venue in California, but that the California plaintiffs could "litigate this action in this forum."

"This case is going forward in California on behalf of Wal-Mart women across the United States," said Brad Seligman of the Berkeley based nonprofit firm The Impact Fund, lead attorney for the plaintiffs. "Wal-Mart is not going to control where this case will be tried, nor is it going to force female employees earning $8 per hour to come to them to litigate this case."

"There are forty thousand Wal-Mart employees in California, most of which are women," said Sheila Thomas, litigation director of Equal Rights Advocates and a member of the plaintiffs' legal team. "We will be adding additional plaintiffs to the case in the coming months." ####