A $475,000 settlement would resolve a class-action lawsuit that alleges Wilkes-Barre (Pa.) General Hospital miscalculated overtime pay, according to a Sunday Dispatch report.
A nurse filed the lawsuit was filed in February 2011 against Wilkes-Barre and its former parent, Wyoming Valley Health Care System. The suit later gained class-action status, covering 583 workers, according to the report. (Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems purchased WVHCS in May 2009.)
The lawsuit alleges that the company wrongly used the 8-80 overtime system before Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett permitted it. The governor signed a law permitting use of 8-80 — in which overtime is paid whenever an employee workers more than eight hours a day or 90 hours in a two-week pay period — for healthcare workers in July 2012.
The lawsuit claims the hospital should have instead used a 40-hour method for overtime pay up through July 2012. That would leave employees with overtime pay whenever they worked more than 40 hours in a seven-day workweek.
The settlement would account for more than four years, from February 2008 through July 2012. Of the total settlement, $128,250 would be set aside for lawyer's fees, plus $43,250 reimbursement to lawyers for out-of-pocket expenses, leaving just more than $300,000 to divide among the workers, according to the report.
U.S. District Judge Robert D. Mariani is scheduled to preside over a final approval hearing April 17.
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