The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled against a huge group of women suing Wal-Mart for alleged gender discrimination.

Under U.S. law, if an issue involves large numbers of people with very similar claims, the litigation can be combined into what is called a “class-action” lawsuit.

This lawsuit potentially involved as many as 1.6 million women, but the high court ruled that the legal rational for combining so many cases is not strong enough.

Many women accused Wal-Mart of unfairly favoring men in hiring and promotion. They sought billions of dollars in compensation.

While the group lawsuit can not proceed, individual women still can pursue their cases against the company.