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Nurses Move Forward With Overtime Claim

DALLAS — Nurses in Texas received conditional certification in their class action overtime pay lawsuit. The nurses claim the Willowbrook and San Jacinto branches of the Methodist Hospital’s Texas Medical Center violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) through improper deductions and denial of duty-free meal breaks. The proposed class is expected to include nurses who were subject to interrupted meal breaks and the hospital’s automatic meal break deductions at any time between November 2011 and the present.

The Nurses’ Claims

The two hospital locations allegedly required the nurses to either work through their scheduled 30-minute meal breaks or allowed those meal breaks to be interrupted, yet the hospital still automatically deducted the 30-minute meal break from the nurses time cards and paychecks. This alleged automatic deduction essentially resulted in the nurses being required to work unpaid during their scheduled meal breaks. Moreover, the nurses claim they regularly worked through their breaks at the request of their managers and in plain sight, which should have made it obvious to their managers that they were not receiving their allotted meal breaks and that their pay should reflect that fact.

The nurses claim they were regularly required to assist doctors, administer medicine, prepare charts, and perform other tasks like monitoring blood work during their scheduled break periods. The hospital also allegedly required nurses to remain available to doctors, patients, and others personnel by cell phone. While the nurses do not believe meal breaks should supersede patient safety and care, they do believe they should be compensated for their time when they do work through or during their scheduled meal breaks.

Conditional Certification

When a lawsuit is filed and the plaintiff believes there is a potential for a class action, plaintiffs must notify the employer and the court of the potential class action. The plaintiffs must also seek certification of the class. Class certification clarifies the size and scope of the class and identifies which potential class members may be included. For this reason, along with the conditional certification in this case, the hospital was ordered to provide a list of eligible nurses who could potentially opt-in to the class action. There are currently 50 identified nurses in the class action, but due to the nature of their work and the hospital’s policies, the nurses believe more than 4,000 potential class members could opt into and be included in this class action.

If you are a nurse at the Willowbrook and San Jacinto branches in Texas and believe you may have a claim in this class action, contact our experienced team of overtime pay lawyers today at (855) 754-2795. Or you can complete the Free Unpaid Overtime Case Review form and our knowledgeable legal team will evaluate your case. If we accept your case, we will represent you under our No Fee Promise. This means there are no legal fees or costs unless you receive a settlement.

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