Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, doesn’t do enough to protect children from store employees who are sexual predators, a local lawsuit contends.

Columbia lawyer David Massey said criminal background checks aren’t done on most Wal-Mart employees nationwide, even though the company has known about employees assaulting children.

Such checks are not required by law.

However, if a court agrees Wal-Mart has been negligent in protecting customers, particularly children, the company might be forced to change its policy on conducting background checks, Massey said.

“Wal-Mart has a cancer going on inside of it, and it’s the hiring of sexual predators,” Massey said during a recent Richland County court hearing.

He represents the family of a Richland County girl who authorities say was fondled in 2000 by a Wal-Mart employee in the electronics department of the Forest Drive supercenter in Columbia. The girl was 10 years old.

No criminal background check was done on the employee, a convicted sex offender who was listed on the state’s sex offender registry, according to a lawsuit filed in 2001 by the girl’s mother.