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Top state court OKs $151M jury verdict against Wal-Mart over off-the-clock work by employees

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Rejecting an argument that a Pennsylvania trial court should have required more than 187,000 plaintiff workers to testify individually about the damages they suffered due to their wage-theft claims, the state’s supreme court has affirmed a $151 million jury award against Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

“In our view, this was not a case of ‘trial by formula’ or of a class action ‘run amok,’ ” the court said in its 4-1 Monday decision (PDF).

“There was a single, central, common issue of liability here: whether Wal-Mart failed to compensate its employees in accordance with its own written policies. On that question, both parties presented evidence. Wal-Mart’s liability was proven on a class-wide basis. Damages were assessed based on a computation of the average rate of an employee’s pay (about eight dollars per hour) multiplied by the number of hours for which pay should have been received but was not.”

Wal-Mart says it is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

Plaintiffs in the Philadelphia Common Pleas Court case contended they were promised paid breaks but often pressured to work off-the-clock during all or part of that time as part of a systemic violation of wage-and-hour laws that was intended to boost company profits.