Walmart Agrees to Pay $65 Million for Making Cashiers Stand

Author: David B. Weisenfeld, XpertHR Legal Editor

October 23, 2018

Walmart has agreed to pay $65 million to resolve a class action lawsuit that accused the nation's largest retailer of refusing to provide cashiers with seating while they worked. Nearly 100,000 current and former Walmart cashiers in California had joined the suit, claiming Walmart's actions violated state law.

The case had been ongoing for nearly a decade, and was headed for trial before the parties reached a settlement last week. The agreement still must be approved by a federal judge in San Francisco.

The cashiers claimed that Walmart violated a 2001 California wage order specifying that employees must be provided with seats "when the nature of the work reasonably permits." In its defense, the company said that the nature of the job did not permit cashiers to sit down because of the need to greet customers and bag items. It further contended that cashiers are "less efficient" when they sit down.

While Walmart did not admit to wrongdoing, as part of the settlement it did agree to make stools available to its California cashiers who request them.

In 2016, the California Supreme Court ruled in favor of CVS and JP Morgan Chase employees in a similar class action, ordering the companies to give clerk-cashiers and bank tellers the option of sitting.

Writing for the Court in that case, Justice Carol Corrigan said, "There is no principled reason for denying an employee a seat when he spends a substantial part of his workday at a single location performing tasks that could reasonably be done while seated, merely because his job duties include other tasks that must be done standing."

The California High Court also acknowledged that the employer's legitimate business need that a job must be performed while standing should be given due weight. But it noted that an employer's mere preference for standing is not a relevant "business judgment."