Jury slaps Wal-Mart with $172M ruling
Jurors in Oakland, Calif., Thursday awarded $172 million to thousands of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. employees after deciding that the world’s largest retailer violated state law by denying lunch breaks, a court spokesman said.
Jurors in Alameda County Superior Court awarded $57 million in actual damages and $115 million in punitive damages in the class action lawsuit filed in 2001.
Jessica Grant, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, spoke to Reuters after the ruling. “What was compelling for the jury was that we put a lot of evidence before them of memos by Wal-Mart from seven years ago that concluded they had been breaking the law,” said Grant.
And in further news, a statement by Paul Blank, campaign director for WakeUpWalMart.com on today’s verdict by a California jury in the class action lawsuit affecting 116,000 current and former Wal-Mart workers over unpaid lunch breaks.
“We are delighted by this verdict. Over one hundred thousand current and former Wal-Mart workers will finally get the justice they deserve and rightfully earned. It is a sad day when Wal- Mart provides these so-called low prices by exploiting their workers and even the law.
Wal-Mart has already lost the battle in the court of public opinion, now Wal-Mart has lost the battle in a court of law as well. The size of this verdict speaks loudly to the disdain Americans have for multi-billion dollar company’s needlessly exploiting their workers. Furthermore, this lawsuit is just the beginning of other class action lawsuits highlighting Wal-Mart’s practice of unfairly or illegally exploiting their workers.”
Source: US Newswire, CNN Money.
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