SAN FRANCISCO A year after the U.S. Supreme Court found that a national class of female Wal-Mart employees was too big to pursue gender discrimination claims against the discount retail giant, a federal judge ruled Friday that he’s not ready to squelch the retooled claims of a smaller group of employees.
The new proposed class of 45,000 workers, mostly from California, claim that Wal-Mart’s executive management discriminated against women by failing to offer them opportunities because of their gender. In its motion to dismiss the case before U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco, Wal-Mart argued that the smaller class, like the national class, lacks the evidence needed to prove an overall policy of discrimination existed.
