NEW YORK – On July 19, a federal judge struck down a Maryland law that requires Wal-Mart and other large retailers to spend a specific portion of their payroll on employee healthcare coverage, reports the Wall Street Journal.

U.S. District Judge Frederick Motz in Baltimore ruled that federal statutes contained in the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) trump the Maryland law, which was enacted in January. The law requires employers with more than 10,000 workers “to pay a penalty to the state's health-insurance program if they fell short of paying an amount equal to 8 percent of their payroll in the state for health insurance for those employees,” notes the newspaper. Wal-Mart employs about 16,000 workers in Maryland.

Judge Motz wrote in his opinion that the act "violates ERISA’s fundamental purpose of permitting multistate employers to maintain nationwide health and welfare plans, providing uniform nationwide benefits and permitting uniform national administration.” (Editor’s note: Click here to read the judge’s decision.)

The Journal writes that Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott commented during Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio show that he is pleased with the ruling. “The thing we find encouraging is that there is going to be consistency, that the federal government is going to be the control point on health insurance and these kinds of issues, so that commerce and business will have one set of standards they work with,” he said.