A California jury awarded $172 million Thursday to thousands of employees at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who claimed they were illegally denied lunch breaks.
The world’s largest retailer was ordered to pay $57 million in general damages and $115 million in punitive damages to about 116,000 current and former California employees for violating a 2001 state law that requires employers to give 30-minute, unpaid lunch breaks to employees who work at least six hours.
The class-action lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court was one of about 40 nationwide alleging workplace violations by Wal- Mart, and the first to go to trial. The Bentonville, Ark.-based retailer, which earned $10 billion last year, settled a similar lawsuit in Colorado for $50 million.
In the California suit, Wal-Mart had claimed that workers did not demand penalty wages on a timely basis. Under the law, the company must pay workers a full hour’s wages for every missed lunch.
The company also said it paid some employees their penalty pay and that in 2003 most workers agreed to waive their meal periods as the law allows.
