A federal judge has granted class-action status to a 2004 lawsuit filed by 19 current and former Novartis sales reps who allege the drugmaker subjected them to sexual discrimination in pay, promotional opportunities and pregnancy-related matters, along with sexual harassment and retaliation. About 5,000 women are believed to qualify as plaintiffs, since the relevant timeframe dates back to 2002.

“These women suffered and we hope, by next summer, we’ll get to put on their case,” says David Sanford, their attorney, who two weeks ago filed a similar lawsuit against Sanofi-Aventis and is also actively involved in a series of lawsuits against 14 big drugmakers on behalf of sales reps who allege they should have been paid overtime. Of those, suits against Merck and Novartis were certified as class actions. You can read more about those by going to Pharmarepovertime.com

Here are some remarks made to female sales reps, according to the 51-page ruling by US District Court Judge Gerald Lynch:

- One woman says her manager told her she “did not qualify for a pay increase because (she) had not been in her territory during (her) maternity leave.”

- Another manager allegedly encouraged an employee to get an abortion.

- Still another alleges that employees were urged during a training session to avoid getting pregnant. The woman, five months pregnant at the time, drew the eye of the trainer, who said, “Oops, too late.”

- Another says that, after her leave, she was disciplined for low sales numbers and her teammate wasn’t, although the two employees were “listed together” for purposes of sales rankings.

- Another claims that her manager told her he preferred not to hire young females, explaining, “First comes love, then comes
marriage, then comes flex time and a baby carriage.”

A “court must be wary of a claim that the true color of a forest is better revealed by reptiles hidden in the weeds than by the foliage of countless free-standing trees,” wrote Lynch. “But in this case plaintiffs have produced enough foliage to raise a question about the forest’s color. Whether or not the declarations are ultimately convincing to a factfinder, they are numerous enough and detailed enough to establish that a common question exists.”