NELA

NELA Written Testimony Submitted For Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing: Barriers to Justice and Accountability: How the Supreme Court's Recent Rulings Will Affect Corporate Behavior 

04-15-2012 02:49 PM

On June 29, 2011, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing entitled, "Barriers to Justice and Accountability: How the Supreme Court's Recent Rulings Will Affect Corporate Behavior." NELA submitted written testimony to the Committee on behalf of its membership and their clients.

The hearing focused on the Supreme Court's decisions in AT&T Mobility v. Conception, Wal-Mart v. Dukes, and Janus Capital Group v. First Derivative Traders, a securities case. The witness panel consisted of academics on both sides of the issue, as well as Betty Dukes, the named plaintiff in the Wal-Mart case.

NELA's written testimony directly addressed the effects of the Wal-Mart decision on employees. We stated that "[t]he Court's majority eviscerates decades of jurisprudence by suggesting that highly subjective decision-making systems, such as those at Wal-Mart, are immune from scrutiny in cases involving multiple facilities .... [t]he majority also ignores the reality of the workplace that individual workers are often unable to perceive a pattern or practice of discrimination beyond themselves." Our testimony also touched on the overall impact of these cases: "[b]oth the Concepcion and Dukes cases represent the Court's continued erosion of workers' rights by effectively barring the courthouse door for a large segment of America's workforce."

NELA thanks Executive Board member James M. Finberg, and NELA members Bill Lann Lee and Paul W. Mollica for contributing their invaluable expertise to our testimony.

#ClassandCollectiveActions #Discrimination #WalMart #LegislativePublicPolicy #SexDiscrimination

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NELA Testimony_Barriers to Justice Hearing_Final_062711.pdf   159 KB   1 version
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