Good news/bad news on the Wal-mart discrimination lawsuit

The good news is, the lawsuit, filed by thousands of women across the country, is going forward.

The bad news is, it's going before a Supreme Court that has made itself known for being so Right-wing, so Republican and so Conservative that the likelihood is strong that they may well come down in favor of the big, ugly and all-powerful corporation, Civil Rights be damned.

Some brief background (from NPR and their website):

The U.S. Supreme Court takes on the biggest employment discrimination case in history on Tuesday — a case that pits Wal-Mart against roughly 1.5 million of its current and former female workers.

The case was filed 10 years ago, and Tuesday's argument is Wal-Mart's last-ditch effort to prevent a trial. The issue comes down to whether Wal-Mart is too big to be sued in a single nationwide class action lawsuit claiming gender discrimination.

The chutzpah of attorneys and a company claiming they're "too big to be sued" is just so nearly incomprehensible, I'm not sure if I want to scream or bang my head against a wall.

I love and agree with what the women's attorney, Joseph Sellers, said earlier today, in the story:  "There is no large company exception to the Civil Rights laws."

So true.

Think about it--if this is true, that companies can be "too big to be sued", then Civil Rights and your and my claim for them go out the window, folks.  Sure, you and I, individually, can sue a company we work for.

Right.

Good luck with that.

First, you won't keep that job you need so there goes feeding your family or keeping that roof over your head.

Then, good luck finding a new job.

And this is just one note of a long list of things I can find and say that's wrong with this going in Wal-Mart's and corporate America's favor.

God help us.  I hope this goes right and for us, for the plaintiffs, the women.

Links:  http://www.npr.org/2011/03/29/134866747/can-a-business-be-too-big-for-a-class-action-suit
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126787308&ps=rs

Ladies and Gentlemen, your Supreme Court of the United States (and what they're doing to us)

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) railed against the Supreme Court in a speech to progressive legal scholars Thursday night, declaring that "the Roberts Court has systematically dismantled the legal protections that help ordinary people find justice when wronged by the economically powerful." Franken in particular decried the way conservative legal scholars have changed the popular perception of what Supreme Court justices do -- and what justice is. Thank you, Judy, for that introduction, and for your work on behalf of working Americans. Thank you to Caroline Fredrickson for your leadership and for inviting me to speak here tonight. Thank you all for being here tonight, and for the good work you do to defend the Constitution and the American values it represents. It is an honor to address this convention. Speakers at past ACS gatherings have included Supreme Court Justices, Attorneys General, other cabinet secretaries, federal judges, and distinguished legal scholars. So tonight I guess we'll finally get an answer to the question: "What do Stephen Breyer, Laurence Tribe, and Al Franken have in common?" Other than: "They were all in the front row when the Dead played the Garden back in '71." Tonight, we celebrate the rise of a new generation of progressive legal scholars and jurists. Look to your left. Look to your right. Odds are, at least one of the three of you will someday be filibustered by Senate Republicans. Speaking of which, I'd like to give a special shout-out to all the filibustered nominees we have here with us tonight. The Republican obstruction that is standing between you and the work you've agreed to do for your country is unacceptable. And we will continue to fight it. In particular, I want to recognize Dawn Johnsen, who should be the head of the Office of Legal Counsel at the Department of Justice. What Republicans have done to keep you from doing that important job is flat out wrong. And I want to recognize Goodwin Liu, who should be sitting on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals right now, and who deserves an up-or-down vote. When I joined the Senate, I was thrown right into the fire as a member of the Judiciary Committee, where, by the way, I enthusiastically voted for Goodwin. On my fifth day in office, I found myself taking part in the confirmation hearings for now-Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Just like I am tonight, I was one of the few non-lawyers in the room, but I didn't mind. You see, I did some research, and it turns out that most Minnesotans aren't lawyers, either. But that doesn't mean they aren't directly affected every day by what happens on the Supreme Court, and in our legal system. I don't think you need to be a lawyer to recognize that the Roberts Court has, consistently and intentionally, protected and promoted the interests of the powerful over those of individual Americans. And you certainly don't need to be a lawyer to understand what that means for the working people who are losing their rights, one 5-4 decision at a time. Tonight, I'd like to talk about how we got to this sad moment in American legal history - because it didn't happen by accident. Conservative activists - led by the Federalist Society - have waged a remarkably successful battle to re-shape our legal discourse, and thus our legal system. And they're not done yet. I should acknowledge up front that this story is kind of a downer. But there's good news: the ending has not yet been written. And I really believe that, if we pay attention to how things got so bad, we'll learn how to make them better. Link to original post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/18/al-franken-slams-supreme_n_617448.html