SCOTUS will not review 9-figure wage and hour judgment against Wal-Mart

I've covered this case before... it has been working its way through the Pennsylvania court system for a while. A bunch (like 187,000) of Wal-Mart employees filed a class action lawsuit under the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Law claiming that they were not paid for missed breaks and time spent working during their breaks.

Corporate logo used in discussion of
Wal-Mart. Not official use.

• The end result at the trial court was a $187 million judgment against Wal-Mart. The plaintiffs extrapolated their damages across the entire class based on data for only some of the employees. 
• The Superior Court largely upheld that judgment (with a little trimming for a mathematical error and some reduction of attorney's fees). 
• On appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed. I wrote a case summary for the PBA Civil Litigation Section Update: Pennsylvania Supreme Court Affirms Extrapolation of Damages Evidence in Wage and Hour Class Action. 
• Wal-Mart sought U.S. Supreme Court review. Today, the Supreme Court denied that request (order here). 

In Wal-Mart v. Dukes (2011), the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the certification of a class of over one million Wal-Mart employees in a discrimination case absent an employment practice generally applicable to all of them. The Court noted that a "Trial by Formula" was insufficient. 

Fast-forward to 2016, in Tyson Foods, Inc. v. Bouaphakeo, and the Supreme Court seems just fine with using a "trial by formula" to assess damages in a wage and hour collective/class action. The plaintiffs used a sample of a few dozen employees, to extrapolate overtime worked for thousands of employees. No problem!

Given Tyson Foods, it should come as no surprise that the Supreme Court denied cert. in the Pennsylvania Wal-Mart case. They have apparently lost interest in protecting employers from "trial by formula" - at least in the context of  calculating damages in wage and hour cases.