A registered nurse in Ohio has filed a complaint in federal court against a Kettering Health hospital, alleging the hospital failed to pay overtime wages to nurses who worked through unpaid meal breaks.
The class-action lawsuit was filed March 6 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. According to the complaint, Amy Murphy, RN, worked for Kettering Health's Dayton Osteopathic Hospital in Miamisburg as an hourly, non-exempt employee under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Ohio Prompt Pay Act. She was employed from February 2019 to December 2022.
The lawsuit claims the hospital required nurses to clock out for 30-minute unpaid meal breaks for each shift, even though they worked through the breaks or cut them short on many occasions due to interruptions or "substantive work duties." The complaint alleges that as a result, Ms. Murphy and other nurses regularly worked more than 40 hours per week and were not properly compensated for overtime because of the hospital's failure to account for occasions when meal breaks were unable to be taken.
Ms. Murphy is seeking unpaid overtime and other damages.
A spokesperson for Kettering Health said the organization does comment on pending litigation in an email to Becker's.