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  3. The employment discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart, which the Supreme Court heard last week, is the largest in American hist

The employment discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart, which the Supreme Court heard last week, is the largest in American hist

admin2012-05-28  42
问题     The employment discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart, which the Supreme Court heard last week, is the largest in American history. If the court rejects this suit, it will send a chilling message that some companies are too big to be held accountable (负有责任的).
    It began in 1999 after Stephanie Odle was fired when she complained of sex discrimination. As Ms. Odle described in sworn testimony, as an assistant manager she discovered that a male employee with the same title and less experience was making $10,000 a year more than her.
    She complained to her boss, who defended the difference by saying the male had a family to support. When she replied that she was having a baby that she needed to support, the supervisor made her provide a personal budget and then gave her a raise closing just one-fifth the gap.
    The plaintiffs (原告) who have brought a class action on behalf of 1.5 million current and former female Wal-Mart employees allege that they, too, faced discrimination in pay and promotion. If Wal-Mart loses, it could owe more than $1 billion in back pay.
    Wal-Mart has tried to end the litigation (诉讼) by arguing that 1.5 million women do not have enough in common to sue for discrimination as a single class under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. A federal trial judge said they do. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld that ruling, twice.
    But during oral argument last week, conservative justices and liberals to some degree expressed skepticism: Is there enough "cohesion (一致性)" among the women to justify treating them as a single class?
    A brief by 31 professors of civil procedure explains why the women are a suitable class. Their claims meet the core test: They have in common the question of whether Wal-Mart discriminated against them. Meanwhile, the high cost of litigation compared to the low likely individual recoveries would make it hard for the women to proceed any other way.
    The average wage gap each year for every member of the class is around $1,100, too little to give lawyers an incentive to represent them. The best way to judge their rights efficiently and fairly is by recognizing them as a group. That is the purpose of the class-action rule.
    The case record contains 120 sworn statements describing sex discrimination in pay and promotion but also in the work environment: required company fishing trips where women weren’t included on their male peers’ boat; a supposedly revenge-free system for complaints that led to women being fired. The lower courts ruled that this and other evidence provide compelling reasons for the case to move forward.
It can be inferred from the passage that the class-action rule______.
选项 A、was set to help women employees
B、reflects the principle of fairness
C、benefits mainly large companies
D、takes effect only in the United States
答案B
解析 根据题干中的the class-action rule将本题出处定位到第八段末句。该句提到That is the purpose of the class-action rule，结合上文可知，That指的是通过承认她们是一个群体来帮她们有效且公正地争取到权利，因为每人每年的工资差额很小，不足以吸引律师代表她们上诉。由此可知，集体诉讼规则体现了公平的原则，故答案为[B]。集体诉讼规则的目的是通过承认诉讼者是一个群体来保护他们的权益，并不局限于只帮助女性职员，故排除[A]。[C]和[D]在文中未提及。
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