U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco said in an order last week that the plaintiffs have proposed a reduced class size to between one and several hundred thousand members.
The reduced class could be certified, Breyer wrote, if it made a showing consistent with the Supreme Court's decision that a nationwide class action isn't appropriate.
The sex-bias case was originally filed in San Francisco in 2001 by women at a handful of Wal-Mart stores claiming that they were denied pay and promotions. It was eventually certified as a class action, or group lawsuit, covering more than 1 million employees after lawyers for the workers convinced a judge that Wal-Mart's employment policies meant that women at hundreds of stores across the country were subject to similar treatment.
Plaintiffs' attorneys have set up a web site, click here.
