Walmart Will Pay $9.5M to Settle Packaged Meat Class Action Lawsuit

UPDATE: September 2020, the Walmart weighted goods class action settlement is now open. Click here to file a claim.

Walmart has agreed to pay up to $9.5 million and change some of its business practices to settle a class action lawsuit accusing the retailer of using sales prices to overcharge for packaged meat.

According to the terms of the settlement, Walmart will create a settlement fund of between $4.5 million and $9.5 million to reimburse Class Members who were overcharged for Walmart meat products and to cover court costs, expenses and administrative costs.

The company also has agreed to the remediation of pricing practices for Walmart food prices. 

In his February 2019 Walmart meat class action complaint, plaintiff Vassilios Kukorinis alleged that Walmart advertised its packaged meat products with a sale price, but the final sale price didn’t correspond with that price based on the product’s weight.

Therefore, Kukorinis claimed consumers did not receive the promised value for the Walmart meat they purchased.

The Walmart class action lawsuit cited an example of chicken tenders that were sold in November 2018.

According to the complaint, Walmart sold a package of chicken tenders that weighed 1.18 pounds for a unit price of $5.78 per pound. The same package originally retailed for $6.82, the Walmart class action lawsuit said.

As the chicken tenders’ expiration date approached, Walmart reduced the price to $3.77 per pound, which should have resulted in a sale price of $4.45, Kukorinis said.

However, the price charged at checkout was $5.93, an overcharge of $1.48, the plaintiff claimed. 

Kukorinis also cited the example of a 1.36 pound package of chicken wings that was priced at $3.87 per pound, a reduction from the original $5.26 per pound price.

As the expiration date on the wings approached, Walmart allegedly decreased the price to $1.67 per pound, meaning the resulting price should have been $2.27, according to Kukorinis. 

However, the complaint said the customer was charged $3.52, an additional $1.25 profit for Walmart.

“Through investigation and information exchanged … Plaintiff and Class Counsel identified numerous examples of the Pricing Practice impacting the final sales price of Weighted Goods in Florida, as well as California, Illinois, Louisiana, and other states nationwide,” the Walmart class action settlement filing says. 

After analyzing that data, the Class attorneys determined Walmart was overcharging $1.67 on average for weighted goods nationwide, the settlement states.

Kukorinis argued that the company’s pricing scheme violates Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines prohibiting deceptive pricing, specifically a requirement that retailers’ price comparisons be “genuine and truthful.”

Walmart agreed to mediation in the case, and the first mediation session was held Nov. 19, 2019. A second mediation was held March 18, 2020, on behalf of the nationwide Class. Additional sessions eventually led to the settlement agreement.

According to the Walmart class action lawsuit settlement, the parties involved “spent significant time” on negotiating the settlement terms. 

“At all times, these negotiations were at arm’s length and, while courteous and professional, the negotiations were intense and hard-fought on all sides,” the settlement says.

The proposed Class includes anyone who purchased “Weighted Goods” from Walmart in the U.S. between Feb. 13, 2015 and the date of the settlement notice, and “whose Weighted Goods’ unit sale price was not accurately reflected in the final sale price,” according to the settlement.

The Walmart foods class action settlement suggests potentially “hundreds of thousands, if not millions,” of consumers may qualify as Class Members. 

The parties agreed to the settlement after it was determined the costs, risks and delays involved in taking the case to trial may have outweighed the benefits.

“Although Plaintiff is confident in the merits of his claims, the risks involved in prosecuting a class action through trial cannot be disregarded,” the settlement says. “Plaintiff’s claims indeed survived Walmart’s Motion to Dismiss, but would need to succeed at class certification — a risky and uncertain aspect of this particular litigation.”

While most class action lawsuits involve some level of risk, in this particular case the “ascertainability … would prove challenging and require complex evidence and analysis that would engulf the litigation expenses and likely eclipse the amount recovered on behalf of the class,” the Walmart class action settlement states.

Do you think Walmart food prices are fair? Do you believe you may have been overcharged for Walmart meat? Let us know in the comments.

Top Class Actions will post updates to this class action settlement as they become available. For the latest updates, keep checking TopClassActions.com or sign up for our free newsletter. You can also receive notifications when this article is updated by using your free Top Class Actions account and clicking the “Follow Article” button at the top of the post.

The plaintiff is represented by John A. Yanchunis and Ryan McGee of Morgan & Morgan Complex Litigation Group.

The Walmart Meat Prices Class Action Lawsuit is Vassilios Kukorinis, et al. v. Walmart Inc., Case No. 1:19-cv-20592-JEM, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, Miami Division.

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