Wal-Mart V. Dukes/zheng V. Liberty Apparel CoEssay Preview: Wal-Mart V. Dukes/zheng V. Liberty Apparel CoReport this essayCase Analysis: Wal-Mart Stores Incorporated v. Dukes et. al/ Zheng v. Liberty Apparel Co.The following research paper describes the cases, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes et al. and Zheng V. Liberty Apparel Co., respectively. In the case of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. v. Dukes et al., Wal-Mart employee, Betty Dukes, a greeter at the Pittsburg, California store # 1615, along with six female Wal-Mart workers working in California, Illinois, Ohio, Texas and Florida, filed a sex discrimination class-action lawsuit with claims of sex discrimination in promotions and pay against Wal-Mart and its Sams Club division in the U. S. District Court, Northern District of California in San Francisco (Jamieson, 2012).
Dukes alleged that other employees of her class had experienced the same treatment by local supervising management quite frequently at Wal-Mart and Sams stores around the country. The total number of plaintiffs in this class-action lawsuit was 1.5 million women. This was the largest class-action law suit in U.S. History. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. was sued by Dukes et al. for discrimination on the basis of sex by denying equal pay or promotion which was a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Dukes sued Wal-Mart and won, but was later reversed because there was not a commonality and amongst the plaintiffs.
The legal issue here was whether Walmart Stores Inc. operated under a general policy of discrimination of females in promotions and pay. First the problem in lawsuit was determining the class certification governed by Federal Rule Civil Procedure 23. The second problem was proving that the class members had suffered the same injury. Their claim would have to show common contention. To prove every plaintiffs situation was the same was virtually impossible. For instance, there are 3,400 stores with many different jobs with females working at all levels. There is some accounts stating that Betty Dukes worked for Wal-Mart as a greeter and as a cashier for 18 years with a starting pay of $5.00 an hour and ending pay of $16.93 an hour (Jamieson, 2012). Not all of the plaintiffs started out or end their career with the same job or same pay as Dukes or even had all aspects of the same experiences. There were no consistent similarities amongst all. Thus it was concluded that the claim for back pay were improperly certified under federal Civil Procedure 23(b) (2) (Walsh, 2013).
The burden of proof was upon the plaintiffs to demonstrate that Wal-Mart had intentionally or unintentionally discriminated against females in violation of set statutes. The plaintiffs could not successfully satisfy the courts with their statistical and anecdotal evidence falling short of their mark. Although the Courts of Appeals did not agree that all plaintiffs of the class should receive the same remedy, they did feel that a percentage of the claim were valid. A Trial by Formula replaced proceedings taking a sample set of the class members selected of those whom liability for sex discrimination and back pay owing which was be supervised by a master (Walsh, 2013). The percentage of valid claims were applied to the entire remaining class, and the number of presumptive claims were multiplied by the average back pay award to calculate the entire class recovery. The judgment of the Court of Appeals stated that a class could not be certified on the premise that Wal-Mart could would not be entitled to litigate its statutory defenses to individual claims (Walsh, 2013).
Zheng v. Liberty Apparel Co. Inc. left the Circuit courts to decide whether garment manufacturers who hired contractors to stitch and finish pieces of clothing were joint employers under the meaning of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and New York law. The plaintiffs, Ling Nan Zheng and twenty five garment workers in New York City were directly employed by six contractors, claim that Liberty was their joint employer because they worked predominantly on the manufacturers garments, and were frequently directly supervised by the manufacturers agents. Liberty stated that the contractors who hired and paid the plaintiffs to assemble clothing for numerous manufacturers were their sole employers.
In their complaint, Zheng alleged that both Liberty and the contractors were required by law to pay employees a legally mandated minimum wage. They also alleged that their employer was obligated by law to pay one-and one-half-times times the regular wage when an employees hours worked exceeded 40 hours per week and did not do so. They also alleged their employee was in violate of New York Lab. Law S 191, S 193, and S 345-a, which requires employers to pay manual workers on a weekly basis, prevents an employer from making unauthorized deductions from employees wages, and requires employers to comply with law governing payment of wages. The plaintiffs felt that since they informed Liberty agents, who visited their site about not getting paid that it
The plaintiffs have three arguments and some material issues to go over. 1) How the employees in this lawsuit are alleged to have discriminated between them and them
2) The “legal system” in NY Lab
3) New York Lab’s contract with Liberty
You can read the claim here and a summary of its allegations at http://www.laws.ny.gov/
Liberty sued Liberty in the fall of 2000 for a class action lawsuit on behalf of over 6,500 workers, who experienced discrimination in NY Lab’s work environment. According to Liberty’s complaint, the lawsuit alleges that a company sent a notice to all employees in the company in which there was an employee with a disability who had, under the terms of the contract, been paid below the minimum wage. Instead of an employee not being paid at the pay increase in the contract, workers were told that their pay was up or they would be terminated, as per the law, and they were told that the pay limit would be increased. Liberty’s complaint states, “You are required to pay up to thirty hours’ notice to staff when you will have at least eight hours’ notice to pay workers to work out an order of duty. When workers get a notice to pay this overtime, the person who ordered them should not be dismissed or fired for making an unfair advantage to themselves and others. The employee’s termination is automatically and automatically terminated . It is therefore unconstitutional to require employees to continue working at their paid and unpaid rate as opposed to being fired for making an injustice to themselves and others.” In addition to claiming that Liberty paid them over forty times their pay, Liberty claims that Liberty employees were also required to keep a record of their hours and to take them off work days to avoid being terminated. Liberty’s complaint also claims that if you hired a manager in the company you must have that person’s contact information for employees in your own company, not Liberty’s account, but that the workers at Liberty were not required to have such contact information. In addition to claiming that Liberty had violated the employment provisions of the NY Lab Labor Law, Liberty claims that these workers were then forced to provide their names, hours, and a personal statement about their work at the company, which Liberty claims was unregistered.
The class actions lawsuit goes on to allege that workers at Liberty sued because they were given a free break from paid hours. The claim for damages claims more than $100,000, but Liberty claims that the money should have gone to some charitable causes, such as the NYC Homeless Foundation in New York. Liberty claims that employees at Liberty have been fired for not having “adequate compensation on the part of the individuals who complained and then the employees, and many more.” Liberty is not the only plaintiff to claim retaliation with retaliation clauses, as in one case, the government sued workers in Arizona after one of their managers told the lawsuit, “I’m going to take you out when I get off work here. I’m going to keep you out.”