(Reuters) - A federal judge in Kentucky has signed off on Walmart Inc's $20 million settlement of an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit claiming the company's practice of giving physical ability tests to applicants for grocery warehouse jobs made it more difficult for women to get the positions.

U.S. District Judge Karen Caldwell in Lexington, Kentucky approved the consent decree on Wednesday, about a month after the EEOC and Walmart, represented by Dinsmore & Shohl, filed it with the court. Walmart denied wrongdoing.

The EEOC in a complaint filed along with the settlement last month said that since at least 2010, Walmart had disproportionately disqualified women from warehouse jobs because they could not achieve a passing score on a physical ability test, in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

As part of the settlement, Walmart agreed to stop using the tests at its 44 grocery distribution centers across the country for at least five years.

Randy Hargrove, a spokesman for Bentonville, Arkansas-based Walmart, said the company started using the test based in part on recommendations by the EEOC and with input from third-party experts in order to ensure that applicants for order-filler positions could perform the requirements of the job.

"We continue to believe that the test was non-discriminatory, however we have agreed to discontinue it, which is consistent with the company's efforts to accelerate and streamline the hiring process across the business," Hargrove said in a statement.

Aimee McFerren, a senior trial attorney with the EEOC, in a statement said the elimination of the physical ability test "will allow more women to obtain a relatively high-paying entry-level position at one of these centers – a necessary first-step toward advancement."

The settlement is the biggest so far involving physical ability tests since the EEOC in its 2018 strategic enforcement plan said it would be focusing on the discriminatory impact the tests have on workers, particularly women.

CSX Transportation Inc in 2018 agreed to pay $3.2 million to settle a similar lawsuit by the EEOC claiming its physical tests had a disparate impact on female job applicants. The railroad denied wrongdoing and said the tests were necessary to ensure workers could perform their jobs safely.

The lawsuit against Walmart was filed by the EEOC on behalf of a nationwide class of female job applicants. The commission launched an investigation based on complaints filed by two women who had received "non-competitive scores" on Walmart's test and were denied jobs at grocery distribution centers.

The case is EEOC v. Walmart Inc, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, No. 6:20-cv-00163.

For the EEOC: Kenneth Bird

For Walmart: Kathryn Quesenberry of Dinsmore & Shohl

(NOTE: This article has been updated to include a statement from a Walmart spokesman.)