Tri-State CareFlight Hit with Unpaid Overtime Claims

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Tri-State CareFlight, LLC and an individual with control of the business are defendants in a proposed class action lawsuit alleging they failed to pay their flight paramedics, flight nurses, and pilots proper wages. The 67 named plaintiffs say they were illegally denied overtime wages while working for the defendants, which provide medical transport services to residents of New Mexico, Colorado, and Arizona, according to the complaint.

The nurses and paramedics were allegedly paid hourly, but only received overtime wages for the hours they worked beyond 96 over a two-week period. They say this policy falls short of the New Mexico Minimum Wage Act’s overtime requirement, which entitles them to time-and-a-half overtime wages for all hours worked over 40 each week.

The pilot plaintiffs argue that they were often required to work longer than their scheduled 12-hour shifts and were not compensated for the extra time. They were allegedly paid a daily rate that never changed regardless of how many hours they actually worked. According to the suit, they were only paid overtime wages when they picked up extra shifts in addition to their scheduled hours.

The suit covers the following two proposed classes, split among job duties:

“All flight nurses, flight paramedics and pilots who were employed by Defendants in New Mexico from June 19, 2009 on and who worked more than forty (40) hours in any given work week but who did not receive overtime pay at one and one-half (1½) times his/her regular rate of pay.”

“All Pilots who were employed by the company in New Mexico from September 11, 2010 to the present, who worked more than twelve (12) hours in one day and who received pay for only twelve (12) hours of work.”