Nurses Claim VXL Enterprises Failed to Pay Overtime to California Prison Medical Staff

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VXL Enterprises LLC faces a proposed class and collective action wherein two nurses claim that the company misclassified them as independent contractors and failed to pay proper overtime wages.

The 32-page lawsuit says the plaintiffs were hired by VXL, a business management consultant who provides “long term and contingency operation support, training, tactical and combat medical solutions, and critical logistical support,” to work in a prison setting to provide care to COVID-19 patients. The case alleges VXL has improperly classified its medical staff as independent contractors, rather than employees, despite maintaining a strict level of control over their jobs.

The plaintiffs claim to have been hired by VXL in May 2020 to work as medical support staff at the Lompoc Federal Correction Institution in Lompoc, California. Per the suit, VXL also hired medical support staff to help COVID-19 patients at the California State Correctional Facility in San Quentin, Folsom State Prison and Avenal State Prison. The suit claims that VXL required the plaintiffs and similarly situated workers to put in more than 12 hours per day inside of the prison yet failed to pay them time-and-a-half overtime wages when they worked more than eight hours per day or 40 per week.

According to the lawsuit, the defendant violated both the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and the California Labor Code by refusing to pay workers proper overtime wages.

While working at Lompoc, the plaintiffs were subjected to “a litany of VXL-mandated policies and rules” that allowed the company to maintain strict control over their work, including when and how they arrived and left the prison and how they performed their duties while there, according to the case.

“Plaintiffs and Class Members were not free to perform their work in the manner they wished, and instead, they were regularly and constantly micromanaged to ensure things were done VXL’s way,” the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit further alleges that VXL controlled all transportation and lodgings provided to the workers, including flights, hotel rooms and cars for workers to carpool between the hotel and worksite, and provided all tools and materials they needed to perform their jobs. According to the case, the workers performed services that were part of VXL’s usual course of business, and the company’s opportunity for profit and loss “far exceeded” that of workers.

All told, the relationship between VXL and its medical staff resembled that between an employer and employees, and not between an employer and independent contractors, the case says. The workers, the suit charges, should have been granted the protections offered to employees under federal and state labor laws, including proper overtime wages.

Nevertheless, the plaintiffs and other workers were frequently required to work 12-hour shifts, seven days per week, without being paid time-and-a-half overtime wages, the case says. Moreover, medical support staff were not provided with proper meal and rest breaks and accurate paystubs that correctly listed their hours worked, according to the suit.

The lawsuit, which was recently transferred from California’s Central District Court to the state’s Northern District Court, looks to represent anyone who was employed by VXL in California and was misclassified as an independent contractor and/or not fully compensated for their hours worked over 40 each week at the proper overtime rate.

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