A Massachusetts jury has awarded a former Walmart employee almost $2 million dollars after finding that the company underpaid her, then fired her as a result of gender discrimination, according to Reuters.

“We respect the jury’s decision but we feel that it did not reflect the facts in the case, so we are studying the decision and have not ruled out an appeal,” said Wal-Mart spokesman John Simley, in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Ms. Haddad was dismissed because of numerous violations of company policy.”

Haddad’s lawyer responded:

“The message in our case is you can’t take a professional pharmacist and fire her for reasons that aren’t enforced for male pharmacists. Their reasons were just laughable,” said Richard E. Fradette.

Walmart is also the subject of a very similar gender-discrimination lawsuit that has been given class action status—making it the largest gender discrimination lawsuit in US history. An attorney involved told the Boston Globe:

“It’s very similar and probably draws upon the same practices that we’re talking about in our case,” said Joseph Sellers , an lawyer with Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll in Washington, D.C., and co-lead counsel in the class action .

Of course, the lawyer isn’t going to say, “No, our lawsuit is totally different,” after the woman won $2 million, so that that for what it’s worth.—MEGHANN MARCO

Mass. jury awards $2 million in Wal-Mart bias suit [Reuters]
Wal-Mart told to pay $2m to fired pharmacist [Boston Globe]
(Photo: taberandrew)

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