Public Citizens and civil rights organizations across the country call last month’s Wal-Mart decision the death of justice for employees with modest claims. Justice Scalia claimed that a class action involving every current and former female Wal-Mart employee is impossible to try. He concluded that women with legitimate claims against the company could seek legal action individually.
Who’s right?
Ask Brenda Schillaci. She was one of 300 women who filed a class action suit against Mitsubishi for sexual harassment. Women were verbally harassed, groped, and forced to have sex with supervisors to receive a promotions. Anyone who filed a complaint was punished. It went on for eight years.
Eventually, Schillaci and her co-workers prevailed. Mitsubishi agreed to pay $34 million, the largest sexual harassment settlement in history. It may sound like a lot of money, but it came out to $69,000 for each woman. Not a lot considering lawyer fees and the emotional strain of being forced into sexual acts with your boss or having your breasts grabbed in public while other employees laugh.
What would have happened if class actions weren’t available? The National Workrights Institute described what happened to Schillaci to experienced employment lawyers and asked them if they would take her case on a contingency fee basis (in which the attorney gets paid a percentage of what they win for the plaintiff). Not one would take the case. Their share of what they could win was not enough to pay for the time required to bring this sort of case to court.
Without the ability to bring a class action lawsuit, Schillaci and the other women at Mitsubishi would still be suffering from sexual harassment today.