Dearborn's Specialty Wal-Mart Paid Back With $12M Bias Lawsuit

What is this mystical connection between Muslims and Wal-Mart? We just saw how the University of South Florida terrorists used Wal-Mart as a place to buy remote-control toy cars to turn into detonators, and Wal-Mart again as an excuse (shopping for cheap gas) to hang around US military installations. ("U of South Florida Jihadist Sentenced").

Now we see where a Dearborn man is suing Wal-Mart for $12 million for anti-Arab, anti-Muslim bias. ("Dearborn man alleges bias in Wal-Mart suit'). The man, Louay N. Kezy, worked in the stock department at the Dearborn Wal-Mart on Ford Road. The Wal-Mart that caters, oddly enough, to Dearborn's Middle Eastern community. ('Round-Up in Aisle 3').

Kezy, who describes himself in his complaint as a "Muslim Arab American," claims that he was being tormented by his fellow non-Muslim Arab American stock coworkers, causing him a hostile work environment. When he complained to management, he was first mistreated, and then fired.

This is one of those stories that will be followed up several months from now, (that is, if there's any room left by then in Detroit's much-reduced newspapers), with a 25-word news brief stating that the case was dismissed. I don't know what Wal-Mart pays their stock employees, but loss of a stock department career at Wal-Mart doesn't add up to $12 million in lost wages.

I spent several years working in employment-related discrimination law, and if there was one thing I learned it's that for every 100 people convinced they're suffering workplace discrimination, there is one genuine cases of employment discrimination. And unless you're earning a Fortune 500 salary, your prospective wage losses aren't going to be anywhere near $12 million.

I imagine Kezy's lawyer, Nabih Ayad, is just going for the big splash, and the quick touch, à la Geoff Fieger. But these days corporations are fighting back against frivolous lawsuits, and I don't think Ayad will find this so easy.

But then no less of an authority than Dawud Walid, executive director of The Council on American-Islamic Relations, phoned this in about the Wal-Mart case:

"Unfortunately, this kind of thing is not as rare as the general public might think. There is quite a bit of discrimination against Arabs and Muslims in Dearborn, even though there is a large population there."

Ho-hum.