Although they acknowledged that the healthcare provider had a policy for overriding the automatic deduction, the employees claimed that this “illegally shifted the burden of monitoring compensable work time to individual employees” by requiring employees to cancel the automatically deducted time when they did not receive an uninterrupted meal break. The court rejected this theory, as a matter of law.
The employees also argued that they were not trained or informed about the override policy, and they did not report missed or interrupted meal breaks because managers discouraged them from doing so. The court disagreed, stating: “What is apparent from the record here is that Plaintiffs’ knowledge of and training on the policy, and the application of the auto-deduct policy itself, varied in large part depending on the individual managers at Defendant’s facilities.”
At the lenient first stage of the case, the court had conditionally certified the case as a collective action, and notice was sent to approximately 3,200 employees at 29 facilities in 27 states. Less than 10 percent, or 318 current and former employees, opted-in to join the lawsuit. The discovery and depositions demonstrated that each opt-in’s situation was unique – requiring individual findings of fact and individualized defenses.
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Source: Healthcare Employment Counsel
This information is intended to be
educational and should not be considered legal advice on any specific matter.
