By Elizabeth Tempio Clement On May 16, 2013, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed its first class action lawsuit under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) against a nursing and rehabilitation center. The EEOC filed this class action just 11 days after it filed—and then immediately settled—its very first lawsuit alleging genetic bias. The… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Class Actions
Subscribe to Class Actions RSS FeedU.S. Supreme Court Tackles Rule 68 Offers of Judgment Made to a Lead Plaintiff in an FLSA Collective Action
By Martha Keon and Bill Simmons Last week, a divided U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Genesis HealthCare Corporation v. Symczyk, that if the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) claim of a lead plaintiff in an FLSA collective action becomes moot before anyone else opts in, the mere presence of collective action allegations in the complaint… Continue Reading
Hospital Defeats Class Certification of Meal and Rest Break Claims
By Breanne Sheetz Attempts to certify classes of employees in lawsuits against healthcare industry employers continues to be a growing trend. In yet another such case, Alberts v. Aurora Behavioral Health Care, a California judge denied class certification of more than 1,000 psychiatric hospital workers in a wage and hour lawsuit stemming from alleged missed… Continue Reading
Hot Wage and Hour Issues for Home Healthcare Employers
The home healthcare industry has become a target for wage and hour litigation and government investigations, and new issues are constantly emerging. Class and collective actions against healthcare employers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), the federal wage and hour law, have increased dramatically in recent years, and providers of home healthcare services have… Continue Reading
Federal Court Decertifies Another Auto-Deduct Meal Break Case Against a Healthcare Provider
By Alex Frondorf Building upon a growing body of case law finding automatic-deduction meal break claims are not suitable for class or collective action treatment (see here and here), an Ohio federal judge decertified a collective action against a national system of medical and rehabilitation care facilities by registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, certified nursing… Continue Reading
Sixth Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment and Denial of Class Certification in Overtime Claim Where Hospital Established Reasonable Process for Reporting Uncompensated Work Time
By Paul Prather, Lisa Leach, and Alex Boals In White v. Baptist Memorial Health Care Corporation, 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 22752 (6th Cir. Nov. 6, 2012), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that, if an employer establishes a reasonable process for an employee to report work performed during unpaid breaks, it… Continue Reading
Washington State Supreme Court Orders Overtime for Missed Breaks
Washington’s highest court has ruled that missed paid rest breaks count as “hours worked” that trigger overtime obligations for employers. In Washington State Nurses Association v. Sacred Heart Medical Center, 2012 Wash. LEXIS 748 (Oct. 25, 2012), a nurse and her union brought a class action on behalf of 1,200 registered nurses, seeking overtime pay… Continue Reading
Class Certification of Home Health Clinicians’ Misclassification Claims Denied
By Angelo Spinola and Marcia Ganz In a class and collective action against a national home healthcare company, a federal district court recently denied class certification of the plaintiffs’ state law misclassification claims, finding the claims were too individualized and that proceeding as a class action would render the case unmanageable. In Rindfleisch v. Gentiva… Continue Reading
Another Automatic Meal-Break Deduction Class Action Decertified
By Breanne Sheetz As we have been reporting, courts are continuing to reject class and collective actions asserting claims against hospitals for automatic meal-break deductions (See here, here, and here). Most recently, in Camilotes v. Resurrection Health Care Corporation, a federal district court in Illinois decertified an FLSA collective action and denied certification of a… Continue Reading
Sixth Circuit Affirms Decertification of Class Challenging Automatic Meal Break Deduction
By Craig Brown and Inna Shelley As healthcare providers continue to face a sea of wage and hour class actions, Littler attorneys successfully convinced the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals to affirm decertification of an FLSA collective action against Baptist Memorial Hospital, a large Tennessee hospital system. In Frye v. Baptist Memorial Hospital, the plaintiff brought… Continue Reading
Federal Judge Severely Limits Scope of Auto-Deduct Collective Action
By Michele Malloy Following a growing trend among courts in FLSA collective actions, a federal judge in the District of Columbia refused to certify a broad group of employees asserting claims in connection with an automatic meal break deduction policy. In Dinkel v. Medstar Health, Inc., the plaintiffs, who worked at one of the nine… Continue Reading
Ninth Circuit Holds Pharmaceutical Sales Reps are Exempt Administrative Employees
In a consolidated decision in three actions against Bayer Corporation, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, and Roche Laboratories, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the pharmaceutical companies, holding that their pharmaceutical sales representatives were properly classified as administratively exempt under California law. To learn more about the decision, please continue reading at Littler’s Wage & Hour… Continue Reading
Another Hospital Settles Nurses’ Compensation Antitrust Case
By Rob Wolff and Delante Thomas Earlier this year we reported that a federal judge narrowed the claims, but refused to grant summary judgment in its entirety, in a “wage-fixing” case involving several Detroit-area hospitals. As we reported in that blog post, three of the eight hospitals originally named as defendants in Carson-Merenda v. Detroit Medical… Continue Reading
Seventh Circuit: Pharmaceutical Sales Reps Are Exempt Administrative Employees
By Michele Malloy The Seventh Circuit has weighed in on the employers’ side of the pharmaceutical sales representative exemption issue, finding that pharmaceutical sales representatives at Abbott Laboratories, Inc. and Eli Lilly & Company were properly classified as exempt under the administrative exemption to the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). In… Continue Reading
Wage/Hour Class and Collective Action Against Hospital Dismissed for Failure to Allege Facts Establishing Similarly Situated Class or Common Issues
By Ryan Eddings In a significant case for healthcare and other employers, a Massachusetts federal district court dismissed, with prejudice, and denied certification of a wage and hour class and collective action at the initial stage of the case, finding that the plaintiffs “failed to allege that this proposed nebulous block of potentially over 4,000… Continue Reading
Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments on Overtime for Pharmaceutical Representatives
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., a case to determine whether pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs) qualify for the outside sales exemption under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The Supreme Court’s opinion will settle a split between the Second and Ninth Circuits in which the Second Circuit… Continue Reading
Nurse Compensation Antitrust Case Can Proceed, Court Rules
By Rob Wolff A recent opinion from a federal court in Michigan, Cason-Merenda v. Detroit Medical Center, dramatically underscores the risk of excessive sharing of compensation information between hospitals in the same geographic market, particularly through use of third-party wage surveys that do not satisfy the requirements of the policy statement issued by the Department of… Continue Reading
Dismissing Hospital FLSA Collective Action, Court Rejects “Integrated Healthcare System” Claim
By Breanne Sheetz For the second time in the past week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York has dismissed a class and collective action against 25 hospitals and healthcare facilities that the plaintiffs claimed were part of a single “integrated healthcare system.” Once again, the court criticized the broad, conclusory allegations… Continue Reading
Another Federal Court Blasts Overbroad Complaint, Dismisses FLSA Collective Action Against Hospital
By Michele Malloy In yet another example of courts’ increasing hostility toward broad boilerplate complaints in Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) collective actions, in Sampson v. Medisys Health Network a Magistrate Judge in the Eastern District of New York recommended dismissal with prejudice of an FLSA collective action. The court found that despite the length… Continue Reading
$2 Million Settlement in Race Discrimination Class Action Against Hospital by Job Applicants
By Ryan Eddings Last week, in Meeks v. Allen Memorial Hospital, a state court in Iowa approved a $2 million settlement in a race discrimination class action against an Iowa hospital. This case is yet another reminder that health care employers must consider both federal and state laws when assessing their employment practices. The named plaintiff in… Continue Reading
Two More FLSA Collective Actions Against Hospitals Decertified
By Breanne Sheetz Two more cases have been added to the growing list of FLSA collective actions against large healthcare systems that have been either decertified or denied certification, granting the holiday wishes of two major healthcare systems in Pennsylvania. In Kuznyetsov v. West Penn Allegheny Health System, Inc., Judge Ambrose of the U.S. District Court… Continue Reading
Court Limits Scope of FLSA Collective Action to Single Hospital in Nationwide Healthcare System
By Michele Malloy Although the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois conditionally certified a class of Utilization Review Case Managers who claimed they were misclassified as exempt employees, the court in Babych v. Psychiatric Solutions, Inc. et al. limited the class to employees at a single facility in Streamwood, Illinois where the… Continue Reading
Supreme Court to Decide Whether Pharmaceutical Sales Representatives are Exempt From FLSA Overtime Requirements
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to resolve in Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp. (11-204) whether the Fair Labor Standards Act’s outside sales exemption applies to pharmaceutical sales representatives (PSRs). The Court also will consider whether deference is owed to the Secretary of Labor’s own interpretation of the FLSA exemption and related regulations. At stake… Continue Reading
Another District Court Dismisses FLSA, ERISA and RICO Claims in Hospital Class Action
By David Goldstein In welcome news for hospital employers, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recently dismissed FLSA, ERISA, and RICO claims in six related putative class and collective actions brought against hospital systems and affiliated entities in the Philadelphia area on behalf of a potential class of thousands of employees… Continue Reading