SAN FRANCISCO–Wells Fargo has been ordered by a federal judge to pay $97.3 million in damages to mortgage workers in California who weren't paid enough for their breaks.
The judgment followed a January court ruling that Wells Fargo violated labor laws. The damages in the class action lawsuit are almost quadruple what Wells Fargo argued it should owe, Bloomberg reported.
The ruling applies to Wells Fargo mortgage consultants and bankers who worked at the bank in California between March 2013 and August 2017.
California law requires that employers give workers a 10-minute paid break for every four hours they're on the job. The lawsuit centered on whether Wells Fargo was paying them fairly for that break time.
U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson found that the Wells Fargo pay practices violated California law.
Wells Fargo argued to the judge that the settlement should be $24.5 million because it only owes workers their regularly hourly rate when they're on breaks. The judge sided with the employees, who said their break pay should also take into account the lucrative commissions they earn.
"We disagree and believe the court misunderstood our compensation plan and misunderstood the law," a Wells Fargo spokesperson told Bloomberg.
The settlement is the latest to go against Wells Fargo, which recently paid a record $1 billion fine to the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection related to its extensive fake-accounts scandal.