Wal-Mart Faces Pa. Class Action for Alleged Missed Meal, Rest Breaks

A Pennsylvania state court judge has certified a class of Wal-Mart workers in a suit alleging that the Arkansas-based retail giant failed to give them meal and rest breaks and never compensated them for the time they worked through those breaks.

Judge Mark Bernstein of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas granted the plaintiffs' motion for certification after finding that the class members had enough legal issues in common to warrant class-action treatment of the wage-and-hour claims and that a class action was the most efficient method of resolving the dispute.

The case is similar to one in California, where a state court jury awarded $172 million to Wal-Mart workers who claimed the company did not provide lunch periods for thousands of employees and did not pay them for the missed time, as required by state wage-and-hour laws. Savaglio et al. v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., No. C835687, verdict returned (Cal. Super. Ct., Alameda County Dec. 22, 2005).

The award in the California action included $57 million in general damages and $115 million in punitive damages to be shared by more than 115,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees in the state.

The Pennsylvania class could reach nearly 150,000 current and former employees, according to published sources.

In this case Wal-Mart's time sheets proved the company's undoing, as its computerized records allegedly showed that breaks were skipped on a routine basis and there was no compensation when those breaks were missed, Judge Bernstein's opinion says.

The judge disagreed with Wal-Mart's contention that those time sheets were not reliable. To support its argument, the company had pointed to the deposition testimony of a number of employees who explained the discrepancies by testifying that they voluntarily worked without pay.

Under Wal-Mart's own policy, each employee is entitled to one paid 15-minute break during each three-hour shift. For each six-hour shift, an employee is entitled to two paid 15-minute breaks and an unpaid 30-minute meal break, the policy states.

Relying on the plaintiffs' expert witness, Judge Bernstein found that about 40 percent of Wal-Mart employees did not receive the breaks specified in the company's policy. In addition, Wal-Mart's own internal audit revealed statistics that further undermined its position, Judge Bernstein noted.

The judge's order provides that discovery in the case is to be completed by June and that trial will begin in September.

Because Wal-Mart is facing numerous other wage-and-hour suits across the country, the federal Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation will hear argument Jan. 26 in Orlando, Fla., to consider a motion to centralize six such suits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada.

The six suits presently proposed for inclusion in the multidistrict litigation proceeding come from federal courts in Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada and South Dakota.

A multidistrict treatment of these cases means that they will all be heard in one federal court by one judge.