Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and trucking company CRST Van Expedited Inc. were among the big winners over the past few weeks in what was a successful stretch for employers in defending against workplace bias claims.

Wal-Mart, in the continuation of the landmark sex discrimination class action that made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, defeated an attempt by a group of approximately 150,000 women working in about 250 Wal-Mart and Sam's Club locations in California to obtain class certification.

In their review of Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the justices overturned the certification of a class of up to 1.5 million female current and former employees in 3,400 stores nationwide.

In the new decision, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California found the same flaw the Supreme Court identified--the named plaintiffs failed to establish the common question of law or fact needed to support class certification under federal procedural rules.

CRST's win involved the award to the company of almost $4.7 million in attorneys' fees and litigation expenses for its long-running defense of a pattern-or-practice sex discrimination case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  The award came after the case was settled in February for $50,000.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Iowa found that CRST was the prevailing party--despite agreeing to pay EEOC monetary relief--because the settlement involved the claim of only one of what was once projected to be a class of up to 270 female employees. The court also found that EEOC's pattern-or-practice claim and its individual claims on behalf of some 153 women "were unreasonable or groundless," justifying the imposition of the employer's legal fees and costs against the agency.

Other recent wins by employers include:

• A state trial court in New Jersey finding that a group of 22 female cocktail servers at Atlantic City's Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa failed to raise inferences of sex discrimination in the casino's personal appearance policy, which requires female servers to wear skimpy costumes and prohibits all servers from gaining more than 7 percent of their body weight. 

• A federal judge in Washington denying EEOC's bid for a new trial on the agency's claims that an apple grower in the state permitted male supervisors to sexually harass a largely Hispanic female workforce. 

• A federal district court in Detroit rejecting EEOC's request for discovery regarding Weight Watchers' goal weight policy for its staff members, on the ground that the commission's lawsuit against the company only involves Weight Watchers' separate goal weight policy for job applicants. 

• The Eleventh Circuit adding to a circuit split by holding that an Alabama state agency's voluntary removal of an employee's job discrimination case from state to federal court did not waive the agency's freedom from potential liability under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, although it did waive the agency's ability to contest federal court jurisdiction.

Employees and EEOC, however, also enjoyed their share of success the past few weeks, including:

• A federal district court in the District of Columbia granting final approval of a $4.55 million agreement settling class claims against the U.S. Postal Service for the agency's alleged failure to accommodate more than 6,000 deaf or hearing-impaired worker.

• A federal judge in Connecticut granting preliminary approval of a $3 million agreement settling class claims by female state corrections officer candidates who failed a physical fitness test that allegedly was biased against women.

• The Fifth Circuit reviving EEOC's claims that federal government contractor DynMcDermott Petroleum Operations Co. failed to hire an applicant for a scheduler position because he was 56 years old and his wife had cancer.