{"id":6555,"date":"2016-12-29T11:30:24","date_gmt":"2016-12-29T16:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/?p=6555"},"modified":"2020-06-18T12:15:55","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T16:15:55","slug":"walmart-refuses-to-admit-wrongdoing-in-discrimination-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/walmart-refuses-to-admit-wrongdoing-in-discrimination-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Walmart Refuses to Admit Wrongdoing in Discrimination Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_8442\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8442\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/mike-petrucci-c9FQyqIECds-unsplash.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-8442\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/mike-petrucci-c9FQyqIECds-unsplash-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/mike-petrucci-c9FQyqIECds-unsplash-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/mike-petrucci-c9FQyqIECds-unsplash-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/mike-petrucci-c9FQyqIECds-unsplash-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/mike-petrucci-c9FQyqIECds-unsplash-450x300.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-8442\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lawsuit comes to a close<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Popular super center, Walmart, plans to settle <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/money\/business\/2016\/12\/03\/walmart-agrees-75-million-settlement-same-sex-benefits-lawsuit\/94881420\/\">a 2015 discrimination lawsuit<\/a>, which focuses on the fact that until 2014, employees were denied health benefits for their same-sex spouses. The lawsuit was originally filed in Massachusetts, and on December 3, the opposing parties decided to settle in the US District Court of Massachusetts.<br \/>\nA Massachusetts Walmart employee, Jacqueline Cote, initiated the lawsuit, after facing consistent rejection of medical coverage for her wife, who was undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer.<\/p>\n<p><!--more Read More--><\/p>\n<p>The cost of treatment and other medical bills escalated to about $150,000. Cote asserted that Walmart was violating \u201cthe Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act and the Massachusetts Fair Employment Practices Law.\u201d The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined that Cote had a case of discrimination based on sexual orientation.<\/p>\n<p>Walmart\u2019s contract change went into effect in 2014, which incorporated a stipulation to allow same-sex spouses to take advantage of the employees\u2019 health benefits. The disputed timeframe in the lawsuit is from January 2011 to December 2013, when same-sex spouses were not included in the coverage policy.<br \/>\nWhile admitting no wrongdoing or fault, the large company has agreed to pay out $7.5 million, which will cover legal costs and compensation for all affected employees involved in the lawsuit. Walmart\u2019s decision to settle is based on the premise of avoiding \u2018\u201csignificant expense, delay and inconvenience of further litigation.\u201d\u2019 To reimburse for the benefits employees were previously denied, Walmart estimates that any one employee will receive between a few hundred dollars to $15,000. A few thousand employees and previous employees are eligible to receive the perks of the settlement.<br \/>\nDespite the company\u2019s reluctance to admit liability for the discrimination allegations, Walmart hopes that this resolution will create an assurance that \u201csame-sex and opposite-sex\u201d spouses are treated equally under the company\u2019s health benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Popular super center, Walmart, plans to settle a 2015 discrimination lawsuit, which focuses on the fact that until 2014, employees were denied health benefits for their same-sex spouses. The lawsuit&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":230,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-settlements"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6555"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8444,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6555\/revisions\/8444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}