Top Plaintiffs' Verdict by Dollar: Ridgeway v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc., $54 million

Nearly 840 Wal-Mart truck drivers sought back pay and got it in a rare class action tried to a federal jury. The big retailer owed the drivers for pay they never got for conducting pre-trip and post-trip inspections, mandatory rest breaks and layovers between trips. "These are private fleet drivers who move freight for Wal-Mart," Nicholas J.P. Wagner said. "We discovered when we took the case that there were a lot of things they weren't getting paid for."

For instance, Wagner learned that Wal-Mart paid the drivers a $42 "inconvenience fee" for each 10-hour layover, a time span made mandatory by U.S. Department of Transportation rules. "The company said it was a kind of bonus, and that sounded like BS to me. We learned it started in the late 1990s, and we learned that Wal-Mart controls the truckers during the layovers. So it owes them minimum wage, which would be more like $100 for 10 hours. So we called bullshit on them in court."

Wagner said Wal-Mart's defense largely consisted of emphasizing how much the truckers earn annually ? as much as $80,000 or more ? so that minimum wage arguments were irrelevant. "But these guys work about 70 hours a week, that's almost two jobs," Wagner argued. "Yes, I could see the jury was impressed."

U.S. District Judge Susan Y. Illston of San Francisco ruled in 2015 that Wal-Mart had violated California's minimum wage law, leaving damages the chief issued for the jury to decide. The unpaid tasks performed by drivers add up to wage theft, Wagner said. He said he hopes the big verdict sends a message to similar employers, noting that his firms has civil trials pending against three other large trucking firms.

The trial was no sure thing, Wagner said. The jury was out for three days. "When you wait three days and you have got your own firm's money on the line, that was nerve-wracking," he said. "I went to the gym, my wife and I went shopping, I got myself immersed in other cases. Anything to take my mind off it. We couldn't afford to lose."

— John Roemer