The Ninth Circuit has remanded the case to the district court, where it will now be handled by Chief Judge Vaughn Walker following Judge Jenkins’ appointment to the state appellate court. The Ninth Circuit ordered Chief Judge Walker to consider whether the certified class can pursue punitive damages. It also asked him to determine whether women who left employment at Wal-Mart before the case was filed in 2001 should be part of this class or a related class. Under the original certification ruling, the class would have included all female employees who worked for Wal-Mart after Dec. 26, 1998.
In a statement to the Litigation Daily, Wal-mart defense counsel Theodore Boutrous Jr. of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher hinted that his client would be appealing the Ninth Circuit’s ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. “We are pleased that the Ninth Circuit significantly narrowed both the size of the class and the magnitude of the claims, but several of the majority’s other rulings violate both due process and federal class action rules, contradicting numerous decisions of other federal appellate courts and the Supreme Court itself,” the statement said. “These are exceedingly important issues that reach far beyond this particular case and warrant Supreme Court review.”
