Week Adjourned: 4.18.14 – Prime Healthcare, Wells Fargo, Compass Health

The week’s top class action lawsuits and settlements. Top stories from Prime Healthcare, Wells Fargo and Compass Health.

Top Class Action Lawsuits

Not Paid for Prime Time? What would the week be without an employment class action? This week, among several employment class actions filed, is one against Prime Healthcare Centinela LLC alleging California labor law violations, specifically underpayment of overtime and failure to provide meal and rest breaks to 400 employees at its 12 California hospitals.

In the Prime Healthcare class action, a social worker for Prime Healthcare’s subsidiary since March 2011, alleges “In violation of state law, defendants have knowingly and willfully refused to perform their obligations to compensate plaintiffs for all wages earned and all hours worked.” And “As a direct result, plaintiffs have suffered, and continue to suffer, substantial losses related to the use and enjoyment of such wages.”

The lawsuit, Beauchamp et al. v. Prime Healthcare Centinela LLC et al., case number BC542351, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles, claims that Prime Healthcare established policies under which hourly employees would be “taken off the clock” for a variety of reasons, including the indicating the end of a worker’s official shift or falsely accounting that a meal break was taken when the employee was actually forced to continue working.

According to the allegations, while Prime Healthcare frequently required its employees to work in excess of eight hours per day and over 40 hours per week, it failed to pay them one and a half times the regular hourly rate as required under California law.

Further, the lawsuit claims Prime Healthcare failed to provide its employees with accurate wage statements and failed to pay separated employees the amounts they were owed in a timely manner.

Beauchamp filed the lawsuit on behalf of all hourly, nonunionized social workers and others in similar positions, claiming the company established policies for employees to clock out when they were still working and did not compensate them for overtime hours worked.

The class action seeks to represent all hourly nonexempt social workers, discharge planners, case managers and others who worked for Prime Healthcare since April 2010, a class she estimates to include 400 people at 12 hospitals.

De-Fault of the Bank? Maybe…If the allegations in this new consumer banking and lending violations class action lawsuit prove true, then yes. Wells Fargo Bank NA is facing a potential lawsuit alleging it violated California consumer laws by billing late fees to, or foreclosing on, state homeowners who had loan modification applications pending with the bank. Something referred to as Dual Tracking. Read on.

The Wells Fargo lawsuit, Garcia et al. v. Wells Fargo Bank NA et al., case number 8:14-cv-00558, in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges Wells Fargo practices “dual tracking”, which is when a bank pursues a foreclosure while simultaneously processing loan modifications. On January 1, 2013, the California Homeowner Bill of Rights was enacted, forbidding this behavior.

“Because the dual-tracking system prevents homeowners from being evaluated for appropriate loan modifications before foreclosure, it has resulted in many unnecessary foreclosures,” the lawsuit states.

Lead plaintiffs, Orange County residents Henry and Renee Garcia, allege they applied for a loan modification with Wells Fargo but that the bank charged them $840 in late fees and prepared to foreclose on the property before the application process was complete. The bank later rejected the application, verbally denied their appeal, and scheduled the home for trustee sale.

According to the lawsuit, the Garcias defaulted on the mortgage for their San Juan Capistrano, CA, home on March 6, 2013. The following month they submitted a loan modification application to Wells Fargo and over the next several months they stayed in frequent communication with bank officials.

However, simultaneous to the processing of the Garcias’ application Wells Fargo recorded a notice of trustee sale on their home, moving forward with the foreclosure process in violation of the state’s consumer protection law, according to the lawsuit. It wasn’t until the following January that the Garcias loan application was denied, according to the complaint. Garcias appealed, but the bank denied the appeal in February and scheduled a trustee sale of the property for March 5, 2014.

In their lawsuit, the Garcias seek to establish two classes: one for alleged victims of dual tracking and another for homeowners who were illegally charged late fees.

The complaint alleges violations of the California Homeowner Bill of Rights’ restrictions on dual tracking and late fees and the California Unfair Competition Law. The plaintiffs are seeking class certification, unspecified damages and restitution, and injunctive relief forbidding the bank from engaging in the alleged activity.

Top Settlements

Next Time Ask for Directions? With a name like Compass, you’d think they’d already know how not to go astray… At any rate, here’s proof that employment class actions are worth the effort—a proposed $1.1 million settlement has been reached in a class action accusing Compass Health Inc. of California labor law violations, specifically of underpayment of overtime. Heard that one before?

Under the terms of the settlement, Compass would pay a net settlement amount of up to $700,500 to all members of the settlement class, which is approximately 2,500 current and former hourly nonexempt employees in California who worked for Compass Health between March 29, 2009 and January 6 2014.

According to the lawsuit, the workers alleged Compass miscalculated the regular rate of pay because it didn’t properly include the value of annual safety bonuses. They also claimed meal and rest period violations on the part of the defendant, as well as derivative penalty claims.

Court documents indicated that based on the number of valid claims filed, the average settlement payment would be about $425, with the highest payment being roughly $1,050, which is “an excellent result for the settlement class, particularly when compared to other, similar wage and hour class action settlements involving similar-wage workers.”

Ok—Let’s celebrate that news—Happy Easter—and we’ll see you at the bar!

Week Adjourned: 10.12.12 – Meningitis, Nexium, Strip Club Dancers

The weekly wrap of top class action lawsuits and settlements for the week ending October 12, 2012. Top stories include the Meningitis Outbreak, Nexium and Exotic Dancers.

Top Class Action Lawsuits

Outbreak Turning into a Rash?—of lawsuits, that is. The first in what could be a string of fungal meningitis class actions was filed on Thursday against New England Compounding Pharmacy—the maker of the steroid injections suspected to be the cause of the multi-state meningitis  outbreak.

The meningitis outbreak class action lawsuit entitled Barbe Puro v. New England Compounding Pharmacy Inc, U.S. District Court, District of Minnesota, No. 12-2605, was filed in federal court in Minnesota.

According to the lawsuit, the victim, Barbe Puro, of Savage, MN, experienced headaches and nausea after receiving the steroid shots. Puro claims she suffered “bodily harm, emotional distress, and other personal injuries” after she received the steroid injection on September 17.

The contaminated steroid injections were recalled on September 26 by Framingham, MA based compounding pharmacy, New England Compounding Center (NECC). As many as 14,000 individuals may have received the tainted injections which were distributed to medical facilities across 23 states. To date, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has reported 14 deaths associated with the contaminated steroid.

The meningitis lawsuit proposes a class comprised of Minnesota residents who may have received tainted steroid injections since June of this year. According to the CDC, so far there have been three cases of fungal meningitis reported in Minnesota  connected to the contaminated steroid injections.

Top Settlements

This might Help your Heartburn…A proposed settlement has been reached in a consumer fraud class action lawsuit against AstraZeneca alleging deceptive marketing practices around their anti-heartburn medication Nexium.

In the Nexium lawsuit, entitled Commonwealth Care Alliance v. AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals L.P., Docket No. 05-0269, the plaintiffs allege Astra Zeneca violated a Massachusetts state law by deceptively marketing the drug Nexium as superior to another drug, Prilosec or its generic version, omeprazole.

The lawsuit asks the Court to order AstraZeneca to pay restitution to purchasers for amounts they allegedly overpaid, to award money damages, or to grant other relief.

The terms of the proposed Nexium consumer fraud class action settlement have not been disclosed. However, the Court has certified a class of individuals and entities that purchased Nexium in Massachusetts (the“Class”). The Court has not made any finding or reached any conclusion as to whether AstraZeneca is liable to the Class.

You are a member of the Class if you have purchased Nexiumin Massachusetts since March 2001. If you purchased Nexium since March 2001 in Massachusetts, you may be eligible to receive money or benefits from the Lawsuit, if any are recovered. For more information on the status of this settlement visit massachusettsnexiumlitigation.com.

Good News at the Poles…I love this one. A $12.9 million settlement has been approved by a federal judge ending a three year long employment class action brought by exotic dancers who alleged the strip clubs they worked for denied them benefits by classifying the dancers as independent contractors.

The strip club dancer lawsuit alleged that the owners of the nightclubs, located in California, Kentucky, Idaho, Texas, Nevada and Florida, helped themselves to over half of the dancers’ tips, penalized them for not selling enough drinks to customers and made the dancers pay stage fees for dancing. The Spearmint Rhino nightclub is among the defendants.

Under the terms of the strip club settlement, the clubs will treat dancers as employees, partners or shareholders in their businesses, and in California, dancers will no longer have to cough up pay-to-perform fees. Dancers who do not make a written claim to the fund will not be paid; any remaining funds will go back to the strip clubs. The dancers who were named plaintiffs in the class action will receive incentive fees for the time and “professional and personal risk” they incurred by being named in the lawsuit.

And on that note—I’ll see you at the bar (no, not the strip joint). Have a great weekend!

Week Adjourned: 6.17.11

Top Class Actions

Logistical Error? Nothing like a lawsuit to improve your company’s standing—or attract quality employees—as FTDI West is about to find out. The company, located in California and Florida, got hit with an unpaid overtime class action lawsuit this week.

The gist of the lawsuit is labor code violations, well, that’s a no-brainer. Specifically, the lawsuit states that FTDI West Inc, violated: Sections 226.7 and 512 of the California Labor Code by failing to provide adequate meal breaks to employees involved, section 226.7 of the California Labor Code by failing to provide adequate rest breaks to employees involved, Section 510 of the California Labor Code by failing to pay proper overtime wages, Sections 203 and 226 (a) of the California Labor code by providing involved employees paystubs not in compliance with California law and not paying “waiting time” penalties, as well as two other causes of action as related to Business and Professions Code Section 17200 and the common law tort of unjust enrichment.

The overtime claims asserted deal with non-payment of “double time” wages. Double time wages are due for any work over 12 hours in a workday or any work beyond eight hours on any seventh consecutive day of a workweek.

The lawsuit defines its class members as “All current and former employees of Defendants who were employed as non-exempt employees at any of Defendants’ locations anywhere in California, at any time from four years prior to the initiation of this action until the present.” 

Top Settlements

Drywall Might Settle but the Dust Surely Hasn’t… Remember all the defective Chinese drywall lawsuits of not so very long ago? Well, they are slowly making their way through the courts to settlement land. Case in point—Banner Supply has agreed a $54.4 million settlement of a class action lawsuit brought by homeowners in the Orlando, FL area. In fact, the agreement covers 2,000 to 3,000 homes south of Orlando.

According to Builderonline something like 95 companies have been implicated as distributors of the sulfur-tainted drywall and named in subsequent lawsuits filed against the Chinese manufacturers. The defendants are accused of being the source of tainted drywall. While Banner Supply tops the list, others suppliers reportedly include ProSales L&W Supply, ProBuild, Stock Building Supply, and 84 Lumber.

While $54.5 million might seem a large settlement, it may only work out to between $18,000 and $24,000 per home, and estimates suggest the cost of repairing the affected properties could reach $100,000.

Defective Boat Injury leads to $31M Award. Ok. There’s bad design, and BAD DESIGN. In this case, I’m not talking about an infraction of the Home & Garden variety, but rather something that warranted a $31 million award. Two women brought a defective product and personal liability lawsuit against MasterCraft, after suffering some pretty horrendous injuries that good design likely would have prevented. 

Short version, in 2006 Nichollette Bell and Bethany Wallenburg were among 12 passengers riding in a MasterCraft X-45 wakeboarding craft. They were sitting on the bow of the boat when it was suddenly submerged as the driver of the boat went to retrieve a fallen wakeboarder. As a result the women were swept off the boat by the force of water and into the lake. The boat’s propeller struck Bell on the head, ripping out an eye and leaving her with brain damage. The propeller also slashed Wallenburg’s left elbow and lower back, resulting in muscle and nerve damage. In their lawsuit, the women alleged the boat was defectively designed. They also alleged the driver handled the boat negligently. Not surprisingly, the jury found MasterCraft 80 percent at fault and the driver 20 percent at fault. 

OK. That’s it for this week. See you at the Bar.

Week Adjourned: 4.8.11

Top Class Actions

HAMPered Loan Modifications? It seems there’s no end in sight to the mortgage crisis—with new twists and victims appearing regularly. In fact, you could argue that it’s spawned a whole spin-off industry of fraud, and related legal actions. For example, this week, Saxon Mortgage Inc, the mortgage service division of Morgan Stanley, was hit with a potential class action lawsuit over allegations that the company uses the Homeowners Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) to attract customers into making “trial” payments on loans it has no intention of ever permanently modifying.

Filed in Northern California, the suit alleges a pattern of misconduct by Saxon which involves collecting trial payments, delaying the processing of loan modifications, and then denying the application altogether for demonstrably false reasons. Where do you start?

The suit’s lead plaintiff, a small business owner in San Francisco, Marie Gaudin, had, like millions of Americans, fallen on hard times as a result of the recession and approached Saxon for a loan modification on her home. Long story short, she was directed to Saxon’s “Home Preservation Department” and subsequently asked to provide extensive documentation of her financial condition, which she did. She received a written agreement from them that appeared to promise a permanent HAMP loan modification after she made three “trial” payments as proof she could handle the loan repayments. But—Saxon didn’t honor its agreement. Are we surprised?

The suit claims that Saxon delayed the processing of the HAMP loan modification, while Gaudin continued to make trial payments, which were duly noted as received in correspondence from Saxon. Nevertheless, Saxon denied her a permanent HAMP modification. According to the suit Saxon claimed that Gaudin had failed to make payments or comply with document requests. They also allegedly claimed that she did not make payments, while in the same letter actually acknowledged that she was current on all payments (do they not read their own correspondence before it goes out?). Saxon also claimed that the U.S. Treasury Department was involved in reviewing HAMP applications. Who gets paid to think this stuff up? 

Not surprisingly, the suit alleges that Saxon’s breach of contract, rescission and restitution, and deceptive debt collection practices violated California’s Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (Rosenthal Act), and fraudulent, unlawful, and unfair business practices under California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL). 

Top Settlements

Goodyear Discrimination Suit Settles. Here’s a good news story—we like those. A jury in Cumberland, NC recently awarded Lashanda Shaw $450,000 as settlement of her wrongful termination suit against Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co.’s Fayetteville plant this week. 

Court documents reportedly state that Shaw was fired for making a complaint about racial and sexual discrimination in the workplace. She filed her suit in 2009. When she finally got to court the trial took five weeks with the jury unanimously agreed on the compensatory damages. I’ll bet she’s sleeping better now. 

May be Justice—but at What Cost? A 79-year old woman in Scranton, PA was awarded $550K this week as settlement of her medical malpractice case. But here’s the downside—Irene Doherty filed the suit because she suffered a 23-month delay in the diagnosis of her lung cancer. The verdict was returned against radiologist Earl Detrick, who practiced in Scranton and Wilkes-Barre, PA, prior to retiring.

Ms. Doherty’s lawyers argued that Detrick failed to properly report to Doherty or her physician his conclusions regarding a computerized tomography (CT) scan of her chest. That’s helpful. It turns out that that scan revealed a mass in Doherty’s right lung that required medical follow-up—but it wasn’t brought to Ms. Doherty’s attention until nearly two years later when she underwent a subsequent CT scan of her chest. The second scan revealed a much larger cancerous mass. So, in the 23 months between CT scans, the mass had doubled in size, and was inoperable. Worse, the cancer had spread to Doherty’s lymph nodes. Frankly, I find this astonishing—how does this kind of oversight happen?

Needless to say, Doherty’s suffering and physical deterioration due to her lung cancer could have been prevented had the radiologist done his job—which was to report the results of the January 2007 CT scan as soon as he saw them. And that’s exactly what her lawyers argued. If nothing else Doherty’s case emphasizes the importance of being your own advocate when it comes to healthcare. Don’t get me started…

Ok. That’s it for this week. See you at the bar.