A California jury has awarded $172 million (145 million) to 116,000 current and former employees of Wal-Mart Stores in the first of dozens of wage and hour class-action lawsuits targeting the giant retailer to go to trial.

The world's largest retailer was ordered to pay $57 million in general damages and $115 million in punitive damages to employees for violating a 2001 state law that requires employers to provide 30-minute unpaid lunch breaks to employees who work at least six hours in a shift.

California law requires companies to pay workers a full hour's wages for every missed lunch. Lawyers for Wal-Mart had argued that workers did not demand their penalty wages on a timely basis.

But jurors in Alameda County Superior Court decided otherwise, handing a big win to the group of employees who had worked in Wal-Mart's California stores from January 1st, 2001, until May 6th, 2005.

A jubilant Michael Christian, one of the San Francisco lawyers who represented the plaintiffs, said the verdict made for "a good day".

"There was an abundance of evidence that Wal-Mart knew that workers did not get meal periods for many years and they did nothing," he said.

"The jury concluded that conduct was unacceptable . . . and deserved to be punished for its wilful indifference to its workers."

Wal-Mart said it disagreed with the verdict and would appeal. The company also said that, because the case involved a meal-period statute that was unique to California, the verdict had no bearing elsewhere.

Wal-Mart owns the British Asda supermarket chain which has begun expanding into Northern Ireland with the acquisition of a number of former Safeway stores from regional rival Morrisons.

Despite3, the US group's confidence, many legal experts said that, with similar litigation pending in about 40 other US states, the verdict was certain to have a ripple effect far beyond California.

Toby Marshall, a Seattle lawyer who represents workers in a similar class action against Wal-Mart in Washington, said Thursday's verdict would strengthen other claims.

"This is a very clear public statement that its policies are against the law," Marshall said of Wal-Mart. "While each state's law is different, the fact that one jury found that Wal-Mart's corporate policies are resulting in wage-and-hour violations means that it's more likely that a jury here in Washington or elsewhere is going to find violations."

Wal-Mart has acknowledged that it had "compliance issues" when the statute took effect in 2001, spokeswoman Mona Williams said in a statement.

"Wal-Mart has since taken steps to ensure all associates receive their meal periods, including adopting new technology that sends alerts to cashiers when it is time for their meal breaks," she said. "The system will automatically shut down registers if the cashier does not respond."

Williams added that, based on a ruling in another California trial, Wal-Mart believed that punitive damages could not be recovered in this case.

Juror Jeff Pector, a 52-year-old software developer, said he and several other jurors believed that the punitive damage verdict should have been higher.

"Wal-Mart, in my opinion, had clear knowledge of what the law was requiring - full, timely, uninterrupted meal breaks - and from the top down to the store manager, it seemed that there was disregard for the laws that were passed in California."

Pector said in an interview after the verdict was announced: "We wanted to send a very clear message that in California, even really big companies need to follow the law."

Last year Wal-Mart settled a similar lawsuit by workers in its Colorado stores for $50 million, and an Oregon jury awarded 83 Wal-Mart workers in that state about $2,000 each for lunch period violations.

The California verdict, if upheld, would amount to nearly $1,500 for each affected employee; individual awards would probably vary because of length of service. In addition, Wal-Mart will likely have to pay the plaintiffs' legal fees.

To Deborah Hensler, a Stanford Law School professor who has studied class actions, that figure did not seem out of bounds. "These days, when multibillion-dollar damages against corporations are not unheard of, it doesn't strike me immediately as being a remarkably high award," she said.

The verdict couldn't come at a worse time for the Arkansas-based Wal-Mart. The retailer, under pressure from organised labour and community activists, has been working diligently to present a more positive image of itself.

In an October speech in which he outlined support for an increase in the federal minimum wage, Wal-Mart chief executive H. Lee Scott jnr said the company was committed to "taking care of those whom we serve - our associates and working families".

The company's critics, however, were quick to say that the California case points to broader problems with how Wal-Mart treats its employees.

"Today's verdict affirms that time-theft labour abuses are a chronic and systemic problem for Wal-Mart and its dangerous business model," Andrew Grossman, the executive director of the union-supported group Wal-Mart Watch, said in a statement.

In addition to the similar wage and hour class-action suits in other states, Wal-Mart faces lawsuits charging the retailer with gender discrimination and tolerating sweatshop conditions in the factories of its foreign suppliers. - (LA Times Service)