By Carie Torrence and Joseph Lazazzero As previously reported, effective November 5, 2012, Massachusetts law prohibits hospitals from requiring nurses to work mandatory overtime except in “emergency situations” where “the safety of a patient requires its use and when there is no reasonable alternative.” The new law, which was buried in the lengthy healthcare cost… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Wage & Hour
Subscribe to Wage & Hour 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
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 Agency Issues Much Anticipated Proposal Governing SCA Exemption for Certain Extended Care Service Providers
By Elizabeth A. Lalik and Rebecca Signer Roche On February 13, 2013, a proposed rule was issued providing long-awaited guidance regarding an exemption to the Service Contract Act (“SCA”) for certain providers of extended care programs entering into agreements with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (the “VA”). The SCA imposes prevailing wage rate and… 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
Texas Federal Court Finds Direct Care Specialists Employees, Not Independent Contractors
By Alex Boals A recent decision by a Texas federal court, in Chapman v. ASUI Healthcare of Texas Inc., underscores the importance for healthcare entities of carefully assessing the nature of their relationship with workers to determine whether they may be classified as independent contractors. The plaintiffs in Chapman were direct care specialists who worked… 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
Massachusetts Healthcare Bill Bans Mandatory Overtime for Nurses and Limits Spending to Oppose Unionization
On August 6, 2012, Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts signed into law Senate Bill 2400, “An Act improving the quality of healthcare and reducing costs through increased transparency, efficiency and innovation.” The law is primarily intended as a healthcare cost containment measure and has received some fanfare for that aspect. What has received considerably less… 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
Pennsylvania Poised to Allow 8/80 Overtime Schedules for Healthcare Employers
UPDATE: On July 5, 2012, the Governor signed the 8/80 bill (HB 1820). While the Legislature’s action was certainly welcome news for Pennsylvania employers who had been using the 8/80 method, the amendment is prospective only, so employers may continue to face litigation over this issue for prior use of the 8/80 method. Also, this… Continue Reading
Senate Bill to Preserve Companionship Services Exemption
By Sarah J. Gorajski On June 7, 2012, Sens. Mike Johanns (R-NE), along with 12 other lawmakers, introduced the Companionship Exemption Protection Act (S. 3280). That bill would preserve the companionship services exemption for minimum wage and overtime pay for third-party employers. A similar bill was introduced in the House of Representatives last September but… Continue Reading
Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham: Supreme Court Holds Pharmaceutical Sales Reps Are Exempt Outside Sales Employees
By Bradley Strawn and Kimberly Gost Today the U.S. Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated opinion in Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., one of the only U.S. Supreme Court cases to address overtime exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), and the first to address the criteria for the application of the “outside sales”… Continue Reading
California Court Rejects Health Task Exception to Personal Attendant Exemption from Overtime
By Ryan Eddings Last week, in Cash v Winn, a California Court of Appeal flatly rejected an exception to the personal attendant exemption from overtime for individuals who provide in-home “health care services.” Under California Industrial Welfare Commission Wage Order No. 15-2001 (“Wage Order”), individuals employed as “personal attendants,” defined to mean employees who “supervise, feed, or… 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
Proposed Home Care Worker Rule Review Urged by Panelists, Lawmakers
On Tuesday members of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce’s Subcommittee on Workforce Protections heard competing testimony about the merits of the Department of Labor’s proposed rule that would extend minimum wage and overtime requirements to many home care workers. This proposal would amend the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) companionship and live-in… 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