Walmart’s color-coded discipline trail defeats worker’s race bias claim

Walmart runs a color-coded progressive discipline system – yellow, orange, red – with each warning staying active for 12 months. By termination, the worker had hit red. Company records pointed to ongoing performance and attendance problems. 

The store manager filled in the picture. In an affidavit, she said she “regularly observed” the worker on her phone during shifts, “which caused her to ignore customers entering and leaving the store.” Leaving her post without telling a supervisor was, she said, “common.” 

The worker filed a pro se complaint in January 2024 and amended it the following month. The trial court read it as a racial discrimination claim only. 

Walmart sought summary judgment in September 2025, arguing the worker could not clear the McDonnell Douglas test – the four-part framework courts apply when discrimination rests on indirect evidence. A plaintiff must show protected-class membership, qualification for the role, an adverse action, and either replacement by someone outside the protected class or better treatment of a similarly situated comparator. 

Two elements were undisputed: protected-class membership and an adverse employment action. The rest did not go her way. Walmart showed the first customer host hired after her departure was also an African American woman. The worker named no comparator and offered nothing to counter that.