The reporter for this article posits a few guesses as to why Walmart dropped the case, but they don't seem interested in trying to understand why Walmart would

The reporter for this article posits a few guesses as to why Walmart dropped the case, but they don't seem interested in trying to understand why Walmart would spend a million dollars to fight a $7k fine in the first place. My guess is that like a lot of cases like this, they are trying to keep a precedent from being set. Once you have been fined successfully for a specific thing, getting fined for similar acts later is a no brainer. But what doesn't make sense to me in this case is why Walmart would be worried about this particular issue. It's not like they foresee a future where hundreds or thousands of employees get trampled by shoppers. Even in some nightmare scenario, it would take a lot of the $7k maximum fine to even make a dent for their bottom line. I would be curious what their internal thinking is on this. Perhaps it was just a result of a bureaucratic rule to always contest. Or maybe it was a personal vendetta by Walmart attorneys against some OSHA employees.