Always Low Motives. Always.

A million violations here, a million violations there: Pretty soon they being to add up. What they've added up to for Wal-Mart is at least $6.5 million in damages -- and potentially much, much more.

A state court judge in Minnesota ruled against the nation's largest retailer today in a class-action lawsuit accusing Wal-Mart of denying employees their legally mandated breaks and forcing them to work some hours without pay.

District Judge Robert R. King of Dakota County Court in Hastings, Minnesota, ruled that Wal-Mart broke state labor laws 2 million times over the years and ordered the company to pay $6.5 million in back pay.

Wal-Mart also faces a separate trial in October in which it could be liable for a $1,000 fine for each time it violated the state labor code -- a total of potentially $2 billion, plus any punitive damages the jury might decide to add to the sum.

Even worse for Wal-Mart: This is only one of 70 similar cases pending in courts across the country.

King, for one, sounded unsympathetic. "Wal-Mart's failure to compensate plaintiffs was willful," he wrote in a 150-page decision. "Wal-Mart was on notice from numerous sources of the wage and hour violations at issue and failed to correct the problem."

Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore told the Associated Press that the company disagrees with portions of the judge's decision and is considering an appeal.

by Mark Stein

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