Wal-Mart
Case Name: JANE DOE et al v. WAL-MART STORES, INC.
Plaintiffs: Workers from China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Swaziland, and Nicaragua who allege systematic deprivation of the rights assured in the Wal-Mart code of conduct.
Summary: In the most comprehensive legal campaign yet, a suit was filed in September 2005 on behalf of workers from four continents for massive, systematic wage and hour violations. Workers from China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Swaziland, and Nicaragua joined together to press their common class claims that Wal-Mart knowingly uses suppliers that systematically deprive workers of the basic provisions of Wal-Mart’s code of conduct, including fundamental protections of the labor laws in the countries where the workers reside. This case uses a new and innovative theory that Wal-Mart’s code of conduct created a contract, and the workers at the supplier factories are third party beneficiaries of the contract. The company’s dismissal motion was heard on December 4, 2006, and on March 30, 2007, Judge Guillford, a recent Bush appointee, dismissed the claims. We are in the process of filing an appeal.
Status: Appellants’ Opening Brief to be filed by October 2008
Appellants filed a new Notice of Appeal on April 14, 2008
A Joint Stipulation of Voluntary Dismissal was filed by Appellants and Appellees on March 12, 2008 and the Appeal was Voluntarily Dismissed by the 9th Circuit
Plaintiffs Opening Brief filed on January 18, 2008
Notice of Appeal filed on April 19, 2007
Decision Granting Motion to Dismiss on March 30, 2007
Plaintiffs Response to Wal-Mart's Motion to Dismiss filed on March 21, 2006
Wal-Mart’s Motion to Dismiss filed by Defendants on February 13, 2006
Complaint filed by Plaintiffs in September 2005
Cooperating Attorneys:
Dan Stormer, Anne Richardson
Hadsell & Stormer, Inc
Paul Hoffman
Do Kim
Schonbrun, DeSimone, Seplow, Harris & Hoffman LLP
— Chris Saeger, "Strengthening Rule of Law Through Aid for Human Rights Litigation in National Courts: A Case Study of Oil Multinational Corporations Complicit in Human Rights Violations in Sudan and Nigeria (December 2007)
— Terry Collingsworth, "Using the Alien Tort Claims Act to Introduce the Rule of Law to the Global Economy (2005)
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