NEWARK (LN) — A New Jersey federal judge on Wednesday adopted two reports and recommendations from a court-appointed special master, allowing new named plaintiffs to substitute for two original class representatives who withdrew for personal reasons and keeping alive a Title VII and state-law disparate impact suit accusing Walmart of using an overbroad criminal history screening policy that disproportionately excludes Black job applicants.
U.S. District Judge Brian R. Martinotti overruled objections from both sides and adopted the reports from retired federal judge Freda L. Wolfson, who serves as special master. The ruling clears the way for John Nole and Rahshan Paige to substitute for original plaintiffs Jacqueline Ramos and Edwin Johnson, who sought to exit the litigation for personal reasons.
The second amended complaint alleged that Walmart's criminal history screening policy was too broad, failing to account for evidence of rehabilitation or mitigation, and that it disparately impacted Black and Latinx applicants, who are "significantly over arrested, convicted, and incarcerated in the United States." The proposed third amended complaint narrows the class to Black applicants only.
Walmart argued the amendment should have been denied because plaintiffs failed to satisfy Rule 16's good cause standard — the more demanding threshold that applies when a scheduling order deadline has passed — and that allowing the substitution would open the door to endless amendments with no limiting principle. Judge Martinotti rejected that framing, concluding that Wolfson had addressed the Rule 16 question directly and determined that counsel moved promptly once they learned of the named plaintiffs' decisions to withdraw.
Wolfson's January 31 report concluded that the amendment implicated none of the three grounds on which courts typically deny leave — undue delay, futility, or prejudice to the opposing party. On the Rule 16 diligence question, she determined that nothing suggested plaintiffs' counsel knew or had reason to suspect the facts giving rise to the amendment before the scheduling deadline passed, and that counsel filed the motion very shortly after learning of the withdrawals.
Both sides also cited a recent district court decision, Cabrera v. Oliphant Financial, LLC, as supporting their respective positions on the good cause question. Martinotti declined to give it controlling weight, noting it is not binding authority and that its diligence analysis must be assessed in context — context that here supported Wolfson's conclusion.
A separate and disputed question — whether proposed plaintiff Nole can represent a class stretching back to 2019 based on the original named plaintiffs' earlier EEOC charges — was left unresolved. Wolfson's March 17 report concluded the question was inextricably tied to class certification factors, including typicality and adequacy under Rule 23, and recommended deferring it until after class discovery. Martinotti agreed, concluding that determination was neither clearly erroneous nor contrary to law.
Plaintiffs had pressed the court to resolve the temporal scope question immediately, arguing that American Pipe tolling independently required relation back and that deferral conflated pleading standards with class certification analysis. Martinotti declined, affirming Wolfson's conclusion that American Pipe does not resolve the scope issue and that the question is better suited for the class certification stage.
The case, filed in July 2021, has already generated rulings on employer subpoenas, partial judgment on the pleadings, and discovery disputes over the circumstances of the original plaintiffs' withdrawal — a line of inquiry Walmart pursued and that Wolfson declined to permit.
The question of how far back any certified class can reach, and whether Nole's October 2024 EEOC charge limits his representational scope, now moves to the class certification briefing.