NU Online News Service, Dec. 7, 3:28 p.m. EST

Corporate America and trial lawyers are anxiously awaiting adecision from the U.S. Supreme Court, which has agreed to hear anappeal in a discrimination lawsuit case involving thousands ofwomen seeking class-action status against Wal-Mart.

"This is very important to both of them," said Robert Hartwig,president of the Insurance Information Institute. "This could be adream come true for trial lawyers."

Gerald L. Maatman, Jr., a partner of and the co-chair of theclass action defense group at Seyfarth Shaw, said the SupremeCourt's ruling "may change the workplace class-action landscapepermanently."

No matter that the case is based on discrimination by a largegroup of women seeking billions of dollars in back pay. Ofparamount interest to the insurance industry is the issue ofclass-action status. If the group is granted the status, "It willbe easier to form large classes," said Mr. Hartwig.

"It could be detrimental to any corporation subject to any casethat may involve claims that can be assembled into a class," hesaid. "This would lower the bar on what constitutes a class."

Wal-Mart is appealing the case, Dukes, et al. v. Wal-MartStores, Inc. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuitin San Francisco--considered the epicenter of class-actions--ruledin April by a 6-5 vote that the class action could go forward. Thatruling upheld a decision by the District Court for the NorthernDistrict of California to certify class-action status because thewomen were united by their allegations of discrimination.

Mr. Maatman said the Supreme Court decision will be"transformational" in the standards for class action certification,and will provide a roadmap going forward. Currently, the map givenby the Ninth Circuit to plaintiffs' attorneys guides them to "filecolossal employment class-actions."

"This is the big one that will set the standards for all otherclass actions," Mr. Maatman said. Ultimately the ruling will tellemployers and carriers what they will need to do to "batten downthe hatches," he added.

Arguments in the case will begin in the spring, with a rulinglikely by June 2011.

Wal-Mart said in a statement that "confusion in class action lawis harmful to everyone." The issues "reach far beyond thisparticular case," said the retailer, which has argued that thethousands of women do not have enough in common to warrantclass-action status. They worked at 3,400 stores in 170 jobclassifications for different managers, and were paid differently,according to court records.

Kenneth Ross, of the Claims and Legal Group at Willis, said thatif these plaintiffs can be considered a class, "you're going toopen a Pandora's Box for plaintiffs' attorneys to find other cases- be it environmental, securities or any other type of area - thatmay have not been ripe for this type of case before."

"It will be a while different story if class status is upheld,"he added.