On August 10, 2017, Stephan Zouras LLC filed a collective and class action lawsuit against Prospect Medical Holdings, Inc. for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Pennsylvania Minimum Wage Act.

We allege that Defendants required full-time hourly employee with hands-on patient care responsibilities to experience interrupted meal breaks without properly tracking these interrupted meal breaks or paying overtime wages due for interrupted meal breaks.

Plaintiffs contend that Defendants knew employees with hands-on patient care responsibilities regularly experienced interrupted meal breaks but did not introduce policies or procedures requiring employees to track their interrupted meal breaks or ensuring employees were paid for their interrupted meal breaks and seeks money damages for all employees who join this lawsuit.

In fact, Plaintiffs contend that reasonable requests for uninterrupted meal breaks are highly discouraged among Defendants’ hands-on patient staff. As a result, 30-minutes of unpaid, working wages are deducted from each employees’ shift.

On October 26, 2018, Federal District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone authorized the issuance of notice to everyone who has worked as a full-time, hands-on patient care employee at any Prospect hospital in Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or Texas during the past three years.

The facilities involved in this action include:

• Waterbury Hospital
• Manchester Memorial Hospital
• Rockville General Hospital
• East Orange General Hospital
• Crozer Chester Medical Center
• Delaware County Memorial Hospital
• Springfield Hospital
• Taylor Hospital
• Nix Medical Center
• Nix Behavioral Health Center,and
• Nix Specialty Health Center

Class members may be entitled to recover their unpaid wages plus penalties and interest.

If you are a healthcare worker for Prospect (or any other health system) and have questions about your legal rights, please contact us for a free, confidential consultation.