ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 4, 1997 TAG: 9703040047
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WASHINGTON
SOURCE: Bloomberg News
Home Depot Inc. was rebuffed by the Supreme Court Monday in efforts to block a multibillion-dollar gender-bias lawsuit by women employees.
Home Depot said a trial judge shouldn't have let the women's complaints proceed as a single class-action lawsuit, but America's highest court refused to hear the company's case.
That means a discrimination lawsuit involving about 217,000 women, whose claims carry a maximum legal liability of more than $65 billion, will proceed in a California court. Home Depot, in its high court appeal, said the potential stakes are so huge that any company almost certainly would try to negotiate a settlement out of court.
The company's Supreme Court appeal focused on the judge's plan to hold one, initial class-action jury trial to judge allegations of company-wide discrimination against women. That would be followed if necessary by separate proceedings to determine precise damages for each woman.
Home Depot tried to convince the Supreme Court that the plan violates the Constitution by potentially exposing the company to more than one jury in a single case.
The California class-action case involves allegations that Home Depot's 10-state West Coast division funnels women into ``low-paying, dead-end cashier jobs,'' and lets individual store managers base hiring decisions on ``vague and subjective criteria [that] gives free rein to male managers' discriminatory stereotypes.'' Two other cases are pending in other courts, alleging gender-bias in four other regional divisions.
LENGTH: Short : 38 linesby CNB