Nurses Say Hospital Encouraged Working Through Unpaid Lunch Breaks

A wage and hour class action lawsuit has been filed in Texas federal court against two St. Joseph Hospital locations by nurses alleging they were forced to work through their lunch breaks without being compensated.

A nurse from Houston is hoping to represent over 1,000 of her co-workers, allegedly encouraged to work through unpaid lunch breaks, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

Nurse Christina Hamlyn filed the putative wage and hour class action lawsuit on behalf of her former coworkers, and told the court that they had to repeatedly endure unpaid lunch breaks.

Overview of Wage and Hour Allegations

These events reportedly occurred in either the St. Joseph Medical Center or the St. Joseph Medical Center in the Heights, both of which are owned by SJ Medical Center LLC.

During their times of employment, Hamlyn and her coworkers were docked for a 30 minute lunch break that was frequently interrupted by a patient or other medical emergency.

Even though employers are not required to pay for meal periods if it can be proven that there was a “bona fide meal period which primarily benefited the employee.”

Hamlyn reported this not to be the case, because the nurses involved in the class were directly responsible for the patients’ care and were required to be responsible throughout their entire shifts.

This means that their meal breaks were either interrupted or completely denied based on the needs, resulting in the alleged unpaid lunch breaks.

“Instead of making nurses clock out for their meal periods and then clock back in at the end of a meal period, defendant assumes nurses were able to find a 30-minute block of time to enjoy a bona fide meal period. In fact, this does not occur,” the lawsuit stated.

Essentially, the hospital had repeatedly deduced 30 minutes from the nurses’ shifts for meal periods even though the nurses were forced to remain on duty.

Hamlyn is seeking certification for all nurses employed at either St. Joseph facility over the last for years who experienced unpaid lunch breaks.

She also pointed out that even though the hospital does require nurses to clock in and out on their shifts, there is no such requirement for meal breaks.

Hamlyn worked as a St. Joseph nurse from July 2013 to March 2015, with the hospital not having any policy in place to compensate nurses for working through unpaid lunch breaks.

Furthermore Hamlyn told the court the hospital was not paying nurses overtime benefits, even though they regularly logged over 40 hours a week. The hospital had also allegedly “regularly encouraged, instructed, suffered and permitted” the off the clock work of the nurses.

The hospital allegedly benefited from these wage and hour violations by saving money on labor costs.

The Unpaid Lunch Breaks Class Action Lawsuit is Christina Hamlyn, v. SJ Medical Center LLC et al., Case No. 4:16-cv-02623, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

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