Prospect Medical Holdings, DE County Memorial Hospital Facing FLSA Lawsuit

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Two women have filed a proposed class/collective action on behalf of those who worked or currently work in job roles with “hands-on patient care responsibilities” for defendants Prospect Medical Holdings, Inc. and Delaware County Memorial Hospital. The lawsuit alleges these employees—of which the complaint notes 21 specific job roles—were not permitted uninterrupted meal breaks, the time for which, the case says was not properly tracked for overtime purposes.

The plaintiffs, a registered nurse and CAT scan technician, respectively, argue the defendants are too thinly staffed to allow for hourly hands-on patient care employees to take full, uninterrupted lunch breaks. The reason behind this, the case mentions, is the defendants have failed to maintain a staff of rotating relief workers that could free hands-on care employees from their job duties for the entirety of their meal breaks.

According to the complaint, the defendants have policies at all their hospitals that ostensibly allow for employees to request wages owed for missing meal breaks. Further, employees are even trained about their right to claim wages for missed meal breaks, called “no lunch pay,” the case says. Unfortunately, the case alleges the defendants have no procedure in place in any of their hospitals for hourly employees to track or record when they’ve missed or have had interrupted meal breaks. Worse, the defendants’ managers allegedly discourage hourly employees from seeking proper interrupted meal time pay.

“As a result, although interrupted meal breaks are an almost daily occurrence for hourly employees with hands-on patient care responsibilities in [the defendants’] hospitals, these employees do not know they have any right to claim pay for an interrupted meal break, do not maintain any contemporaneous records of their interrupted meal breaks, do not claim wages for their interrupted meal breaks, do not receive any wages for their interrupted meal breaks,” the case reads.