I want to close with, 'Be careful what you ask for.' Walmart didn't want a class action, I'm not sure they wanted tens of thousands of lawsuits. -Plaintiff's attorney Brad Seligman

What are you thoughts on the majority ruling?

The majority makes it much harder for individuals to join together in a class case to challenge pervasive sex discrimination or frankly any discrimination. It's bad news and we're very disappointed in it.

There's a very important point here I want to make: The court did not rule that Walmart is not guilty of discrimination. It didn't even address that. It made a procedural decision about whether there can be a class action or not.

In fact, I want to say this to all the women who worked at Walmart at any time since December 26, 1998: This case is not over. Under well-established rules, any women who had a claim of denial of equal pay or promotion into management at any time since December 26, 1998, those claims today are not too late to bring... We've already interviewed over 12,000 women around the country, we're getting thousands more contacting us. We'll be advising them of their rights to file claims with the EEOC, or to file lawsuits.

It sounds like the claims process through EEOC had been on pause and now it starts again?

That's right. A class action automatically freezes the statute of eliminations, or the time period for filing the claim as long as the class action is pending. And that means because of the rules in the case, the class goes back to the end of 1998. So women who had any claims at any time since that time are not too late. Their claims have been frozen and they now have the statutory time periods to go to the EEOC or to file their own lawsuit.

So it sounds like instead of putting a flurry of cases through courts, that flurry is now going to move to the EEOC...

Both places. Some will get filed in court immediately and some with the EEOC. It's certainly not over. Walmart does not have a free pass to discriminate and the women of Walmart are not done.

From reading the opinion, it sounded like you might have overreached and tried to get too large a group of women across too many different kinds of jobs; the class was too diverse to be taken as one block.

That's certainly the opinion of Justice Scalia. We're examining that opinion to see if there might be a narrower class that we can formulate going forward.

It's also important that there was very vigorous dissent by four justices that pointed out that this class had enough evidence to go forward and the court was dramatically changing ground rules for class actions.

How is Betty Dukes?

She is resolute and ready to go. She understands this is a long fight. She has seen this case from day one as a long-term struggle and she's ready. We're all disappointed but Betty Dukes' case is going forward. And she along with the rest of us are encouraging Walmart women to not give up hope.

The phrase I want to close with is "Be careful what you ask for." Walmart didn't want a class action, I'm not sure they wanted tens of thousands of lawsuits.

Here's the statement from Wal-Mart:

We are pleased with today’s ruling and believe the Court made the right decision. Walmart has had strong policies against discrimination for many years. The Court today unanimously rejected class certification and, as the majority made clear, the plaintiffs’ claims were worlds away from showing a companywide discriminatory pay and promotion policy.

By reversing the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision, the majority effectively ends this class action lawsuit.

Walmart has a long history of providing advancement opportunities for our female associates and will continue its efforts to build a robust pipeline of future female leaders.

-Gisel Ruiz, Executive Vice President, People, Walmart U.S.

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