JUDGE AGREES TO WAL-MART'S OFFER TO DRIVERS

LITTLE ROCK — A federal judge in Little Rock gave his preliminary approval Wednesday to a joint plan to settle a national class-action lawsuit filed in 2004 by black truck drivers against Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

The civil-rights lawsuit, which had been scheduled for trial next month, alleged that the application and hiring practices employed by the nation’s largest retailer had the effect of preventing many black drivers from getting those jobs, or in many cases even knowing that the jobs were available.

By applying his signature Wednesday to a 54-page proposed settlement agreement, which was filed Friday, U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr. allowed attorneys to immediately retain a claims administrator, Russ Consulting Inc. of Minneapolis, which will begin notifying and identifying potential class members.

Wal-Mart has agreed to pay$17.5 million that will be divided among less than 10,000 class members.

The class consists of the following sub-classes: Blacks residing in the continental United States who, on or after June 22, 2001, applied to be over-the-road truck drivers for Wal-Mart and weren’t hired, or who, on or after Sept. 22, 2001, received a notice of rejection for such a position; and Blacks residing in the continental United States who, on or after Sept. 22, 2001, were deterred or thwarted from applying for the positions due to the challenged policies and practices.

While Wal-Mart has supplied plaintiffs’ attorneys with names and addresses for members of the first subclass, plans for identifying and notifying members of the second subclass include publishing notices in Jet magazine and three trucking magazines, and running ads on certain urban radio stations.

The advertisements are set to come out about 60 days before the May 25 deadline that Wilson set for claim forms to be returned.

The administrator will review claim forms to decide which would-be claimants qualify as class members.

The class representatives for applicants who were rejected are the lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Daryal Nelson of Coldwater, Miss., and Tommy Armstrong of Patterson in Woodruff County.  Wilson said that an Arkansas truck driver, Howard Gurley, will represent the group that was thwarted or deterred from applying for driving jobs.

Armstrong and Nelson will each receive $40,000 for being class representatives, and Gurley will receive $5,000.

In approving the proposed settlement, Wilson also approved a series of notices that will be sent to known class members and used in advertisements.

At a final fairness hearing on June 30, Wilson will consider any objections to the agreement.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs are Hank Bates of Cauley Bowman Carney & Williams in Little Rock; John W. Walker and Shawn Childs of the Walker firm in Little Rock; and Morgan “Chip” Welch and Lloyd “Tre” Kitchens of Welch, Brewer and Hudson in North Little Rock.

Representing Wal-Mart and its transportation division are attorneys Phil Kaplan of Little Rock, and attorneys Lawrence DiNardo, Michael J. Gray and Kathryn Stieber of Chicago.

This article was published Thursday, February 26, 2009.
Business, Pages 27, 28 on 02/26/2009

WAL-MART TO SETTLE SUIT BY BLACK TRUCK
DRIVERS WITH $17.5 MILLION DEAL

LITTLE ROCK — Wal-Mart has agreed to change its recruitment and hiring methods for over-the-road truck drivers, and pay $17.5 million to thousands of blacks who say they were denied the jobs because of their race, resolving a nationwide class-action lawsuit that was set for trial next month.

On Friday, attorneys for the Bentonville-based chain and the drivers jointly filed a proposed settlement agreement in federal court in Helena-West Helena.

The 54-page agreement, which states that it “is in no way an admission by Wal-Mart” of the allegations, must be approved by U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr. before becoming official.

Wilson has been asked to first sign a preliminary approval of the settlement, which would give the parties the go ahead to send notices to two groups of class members. The first group includes all black applicants who, records show, were rejected for driving jobs since Sept. 22, 2001. The second group, whose members will be sought through targeted advertisements, are those who were deterred from applying because of their race.

Interested members of both groups must return a claim form to be considered part of the class that will ultimately divide the money.

After a sufficient time has been allowed for all potential plaintiffs to be identified, and a period has lapsed in which anyone may object to the proposal, Wilson will conduct a fairness hearing before deciding whether to give his final seal of approval. Attorneys have asked him to schedule the hearing for June 30.

The case began in 2004, with a civil-rights lawsuit filed against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Wal-Mart Transportation LLC, by Daryal T. Nelson of Coldwater, Miss., that was later consolidated with a suit filed in 2005 by Tommy Armstrong, a former Wal-Mart Distribution Center employee from Woodruff County.

The men, both of whom applied for truck-driving positions and were turned down, alleged that black would-be drivers were being routinely denied jobs, or in many cases even the opportunity to apply, because of the company’s word-of-mouth recruitment policies and its related closed-off hiring procedures. They sought back pay, an injunction on discriminatory practices and other monetary damages.

Wilson granted nationwide class-action status, with some restrictions on damages, in May2007.

“Resolving this litigation is in the best interest of our company, our shareholders and our associates,” Daphne Moore, a spokesman for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., said in a news release Friday.

“Encouraging diversity is an important part of the hiring process for all areas of our company,” Moore said. “We are implementing improvements to our transportation division’s recruitment, selection and personnel systems and believe they will be an integral part of our commitment to diversity.”

There are about 8,000 drivers in the company fleet.

In the same news release, Little Rock attorney Hank Bates, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, called the proposal “an excellent result for the class both in terms of the monetary relief and in terms of Wal-Mart’s commitments to job placements, equal opportunity and enhanced recruitment efforts moving forward.”

Bates represents the plaintiffs, along with John W. Walker of Little Rock and Morgan “Chip” Welch of North Little Rock.

Aside from agreeing to divide $17.5 million among a group of people that’s estimated to number less than 10,000, Wal-Mart has agreed to provide priority job placements to 23 class members who submit approved claim forms; provide direct notice of all future job opportunities to all interested class members; establish benchmark hiring goals so that the composition of future hires is proportionate to the racial composition of the applicants; select a diversity recruiter and enhance recruitment efforts and advertising targeted to blacks.

Sections of the agreement spell out detailed procedures to be enacted for training, recruiting, advertising of available jobs, record-keeping and accountability.

In granting class-action status, Wilson found that the “uniform hiring culture” that Wal-Mart fosters ensures that potential drivers are recruited almost exclusively by word of mouth from current drivers and then are screened further by committees at the company’s 47 transportation offices that aren’t racially diverse and don’t use objective selection criteria.

Wilson noted, “Numerous courts recognize that word-of-mouth recruiting may be a discriminatory practice.”

Wal-Mart still faces a lawsuit that could become the nation’s largest class-action sex-discrimination case, which alleges that the company paid women less than men for the same jobs and did not give women the same opportunities for promotion as men.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled Feb. 13 that a larger panel of judges will reconsider the class-action status previously certified by a federal judge and upheld by a three-judge panel.

This article was published Saturday, February 21, 2009.
Business, Pages 29, 34 on 02/21/2009

CLASS ACTION STATUS GRANTED!!

 

On May 16, 2007, Judge William R. Wilson, U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Arkansas, granted, in part, the request for class action status to:

 

African American person who reside in the continental U.S. and who applied for over-the-road truck driver positions with Wal Mart Transportation since September 22, 2001, but who were not hired; and

 

African American person who reside in the continental U.S. who were deterred or thwarted from applying for over-the-road truck driver positions with Wal Mart Transportation due to Wal Mart's challenged positions and practices.

 

Click here for the full opinion.