Walmart Missed Meal Breaks Case Ends in Jury Award of $6 Million

According to a Law360 report, a missed meal breaks class action lawsuit in which Walmart was named as defendant has ended with the retail giant being forced to pay $6.1 million. The legal claim was filed by two women who both worked at a Walmart fulfillment center located in Chino, Calif.

Missed Meal Breaks Lawsuit Allegations Regarding Chino Fulfillment Center

As indicated by the Law360 report, the Chino Walmart fulfillment facility was equipped with anti-theft metal detectors which employees were required to pass through when leaving the building.

Chelsea H. and Alyssa H. both claimed in their missed meal breaks lawsuit that this discouraged workers from taking their breaks because of how much time it took. Employees would purportedly worry about getting back from breaks on time and so would not attempt to leave the building. Although Walmart provided lunch rooms at the Chino facility, where vending machines and televisions were available, these were overcrowded and noisy, according to the plaintiffs.

Another aspect of this class action lawsuit was the accusation that Walmart failed to properly calculate hours for the purposes of paying overtime hours. The fulfillment center operated on a mutually-agreed upon alternative work schedule voted on by the employees. The jury found that overtime, given this alternative schedule was legally figured and paid by Walmart.

What is a Fulfillment Center?

As indicated by Shipbob.com, a fulfillment center is different from a businesses’ general stock warehouse. E-commerce retailers like Amazon or online arms of major brick and mortar big box stores like Walmart, Target, and similar stores can contract out the services of fulfilling online customer orders to a third party logistics provider or choose to handle this aspect of their business themselves.

Whether a fulfillment center is operated by the primary management of the retail business or by a third party, it directly fills the e-commerce orders of patrons and sends products promptly to the online orderer.

The jury weighed in positively on behalf of the plaintiffs and the Class of employees they represented regarding missed meal breaks. In addition to supporting the notion that Walmart shorted employees meal breaks guaranteed under California and federal labor laws by requiring them to clock out prior to going passing through a security metal detector, the use of the device while on break was brought under scrutiny.

According to a 2015 article in the Phoenix Business Journal, employers are supposed to compensate employees for preliminary and post-shift activities that are central to the job’s principal demands. Security check points both before and after work are not necessarily central or legitimate in terms of needing to be compensated legally under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA).

The situation at the Chino fulfillment Center differed in that it was a mid-shift security checkpoint that was time-consuming and allegedly ate into minutes that were available for a required duty-free off-clock break. Walmart is appealing the $6.1 million requirement.

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