ERISA Class Action Watch

Keller Rohrback and others have filed a nationwide class action in the E.D. Penn. against Wal-Mart. The complaint builds on allegations (and a jury verdict in Pennsylvania) that Wal-Mart has failed to compensate employees for all of the hours they worked. The idea is that because Wal-Mart makes profit-sharing contributions to 401(k) plan participants’ accounts based on their compensation, shaving the compensation acted to unlawfully reduce the contributions to the plan.  It’s a pretty straightforward theory that could apply to any company that “shaves” wages and also determines retirement plan contributions or benefits based on compensation. It’s also a slick way for Keller Rohrback to use ERISA to leverage the dozens of state-level claims against Wal-Mart for unpaid wages into a single, national class action.