Wal-Mart Waits for a High-Stakes Ruling

Although the case focuses on the experiences of seven named women, Joseph Sellers, who represents the plaintiffs, said he and his colleagues have heard from "thousands" of women with similar experiences.

"We have a large database of women who have contracted us," said Sellers, who heads the civil rights practice at Washington, D.C.-based Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll. "The interest level [in this case] is very strong among current and former women at the company."

Wal-Mart currently has 1.4 million employees, according to company spokeswoman Sarah Clark. Clark said she did not know what percentage of Wal-Mart's employees are women.

Wal-Mart argues that a class of potentially 1.6 million women would be too unwieldy to manage. Even if it could be managed, the company argues that the experiences of seven women cannot be representative of a class that large. Wal-Mart Supercenters and the company's Neighborhood Market stores represent nearly one-third of the company's stores and employ about half of its workers. But none of the plaintiffs ever worked in either a Supercenter or a Neighborhood Market, the company notes.

Meanwhile, the company charges that decisions about pay and promotions are largely made at the store level.

"Wal-Mart does not tolerate discrimination against women or anyone else," said Clark. "We believe that Wal-Mart is a great place to work. Isolated complaints do not change that fact."

Wal-Mart's arguments are typical of companies facing potential class actions, said Borgen. But while the company is arguing that it would be impossible to certify a class that large, Borgen said it has been done in other types of class-action suits. Looking at the plaintiffs' theories in this case, there's not that much difference between it and the case his firm settled against Home Depot, Borgen said.