UPDATE 1-Black Merrill brokers lose bid for class-action

* Judge says individual claims must be presented to juries

* Both sides faulted for burdening court

* Bank of America, which owns Merrill, pleased with ruling (Adds lawyer comment)

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Aug 9 (Reuters) - Bank of America Corp's (BAC.N) Merrill Lynch & Co unit won a court victory when a judge ruled that 17 black financial advisers who accused the brokerage of racial discrimination cannot have their cases tried together.

The ruling, by U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman in Chicago, denied class-action status for about 700 financial advisers nationwide and requires individual plaintiffs to pursue their cases before a jury. A class-action case can result in higher recoveries and lower litigation costs.

Bank of America spokesman Bill Halldin said the company is pleased with Thursday's ruling.

Linda Friedman, a partner at Stowell & Friedman Ltd in Chicago representing the plaintiffs, did not return calls seeking comment. She told Bloomberg News she would ask a federal appeals court for permission to review the ruling, which could result in as many as 200 trials if it stood.

The lawsuit was filed in November 2005 on behalf of George McReynolds, a 22-year Merrill veteran in Nashville, Tennessee, who accused his employer of systematically discriminating against black brokers in hiring, promotion and compensation.

Merrill was accused of steering blacks into clerical positions, diverting lucrative accounts to white brokers and creating a hostile work environment, court papers show. Bank of America bought Merrill on Jan. 1, 2009.

In his 18-page ruling, Gettleman said it was not enough to allege generally that Merrill has a "corporate culture of racial discrimination" that infected the activities of more than 15,000 brokers and supervisors across the country.

He said the plaintiffs in this case were supervised by hundreds of different people and subjected to "countless" decisions that left them with "totally different" experiences.

"Plaintiffs' position essentially is that all of these decisions were made by racist employees of a racist company," Gettleman wrote. "Because plaintiffs' statistical evidence alone is insufficient to establish company-wide discrimination in a manner that affects each class member in the same way, each individual putative class member's claim for liability and damages will have to be tried to a jury."

Noting the case's long and contentious history, the judge also faulted both sides for submitting "overly lengthy briefs with countless unnecessary citations and footnotes," creating a burden on the court.

The case is McReynolds et al. v. Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 05-06583. (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel; Editing by Andre Grenon and Steve Orlofsky)