Nurses Get Cert. In Suit About Overtime Laws in California

Nurses in a collective action recently won conditional certification for their claims that San Francisco jails violate overtime laws in California.

U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg recently determined that plaintiff Tatyana L. was legally able to represent thousands of other San Francisco nurses who were classified as per diem workers at public facilities between December 2015 and December 2018. Seeborg granted Tatyana conditional certification on her second attempt.

“The standard for certification is a lenient one that typically results in certification,’” Seeborg said in response to the city of San Francisco’s objection to the overtime lawsuit according to Law360. “As held in the prior order, Litvinova’s burden was not difficult to satisfy and a handful of declarations may suffice. She has done so here and the collective action may proceed.”

Tatyana filed her collective action against the city of San Francisco in March 2018 and amended her complaint in April 2018. She claimed that thousands of nurses work in the city’s public hospitals, jails, and health programs but are being denied overtime pay.

Registered nurses, nurse midwives, nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, and other nursing professionals are allegedly classified as per diem workers by the city. This means that they are not entitled to the same benefits under overtime laws in California.

The city reportedly utilized a “flex time” scheduling program which allowed workers to work more or less than 8 hours in a single day. As a requirement of the program, workers were reportedly made to acknowledge California overtime laws that allows hospitals to calculate overtime over the course of 14 consecutive days. Under these overtime laws, hospitals can calculate overtime pay for hours worked above 8 in a single day or 80 over the course of 14 days.

“At times of staffing shortages, defendant attempted to avoid directly ordering plaintiff and others […] to work overtime by first soliciting them members to volunteer,” the lawsuit alleges. “When plaintiff and others […] worked voluntary overtime, defendant classified them as per diem nurses and paid them at the rate applicable to per diem nurses.”

Tatyana claims that the city of San Francisco took advantage of their employees in order to pay far less in overtime wages than they should. She called the per diem classification scheme a “sham intended to circumvent payment of overtime wages.”

Overtime laws in California are extremely strict even when compared to federal standards. Employers are required to pay their employees time and a half wages for all hours worked between 8 and 12 hours in a day as well, for all hours worked over 40 hours in a work week, and for the first 8 hours of work on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.

California also requires employers to pay “double time” at double the normal rate of pay for all hours worked over 12 hours in a day and all hours worked over 8 hours on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.

Paying these overtime rates can be costly, meaning that employers may try to limit labor costs by classifying their workers as independent contractors or other alternative workers rather than true employees.

The Nurse Overtime Collective Action Lawsuit is Case No. 3:18-cv-01494 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

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