SAN FRANCISCO In the first major gender discrimination suit to come to a head in California since the U.S. Supreme Court tossed out the claims of nearly 1.6 million female Wal-Mart workers last year, plaintiffs lawyers are doing what they can to steer clear of comparisons to that case.
But that might be a challenge because the claims a proposed class of about 700 women are bringing against Costco Inc., that they were passed over for management jobs because of their gender, sound in some ways very similar to Dukes v. Wal-Mart: The defendants are both retail giants, both classes of plaintiffs rely on controversial statistical evidence, and even some of the plaintiffs lawyers are the same.
