The company says the plaintiffs experts can prove a common pattern of discrimination since pay and promotion decisions are made on a store-by-store basis.
It was a pattern which Sheridan would repeat many times - serving jail terms for refusing to pay the poll tax and a fine after taking part in blockades at Faslane nuclear submarine base.
Equally bizarre, the Providence Journal reports that a retired Rhode Island schoolteacher's attempt to pay off a credit card was held up because the transaction did not fit his usual pattern and therefore raised a red flag.