CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Adena Health System is facing a federal lawsuit filed by a former employee who claims to have spent 18 years working within the organization. The lawsuit alleges that the healthcare system failed to properly compensate hourly, non-exempt healthcare employees for overtime hours worked.
The lawsuit, which is labeled as a class action has been lodged in federal court, names the former employee as the plaintiff and Adena Health System as the defendant. The plaintiff is being represented by numerous lawyers on the case, who alleges that employees were forced to work through their lunch breaks, cut their lunch breaks short, or take none at all, while the hospital allegedly deducted a lunch period from employees’ paychecks.
According to the court documents, the hospital employees worked more than forty hours per week, as they were hourly, non-exempt employees entitled to overtime pay. However, the lawsuit contends that Adena deducted a daily 30-minute meal break from their compensable hours worked, even when the employees were unable to take a full, uninterrupted 30-minute meal break.
The court documents further state that the employees often found themselves too occupied with patient care and substantial job duties to take the full allocated meal break. The lawsuit argues that the healthcare system did not implement a viable system for employees to report instances when they were unable to take a proper meal break due to their job responsibilities. Consequently, a 30-minute meal break deduction was consistently applied to their hours worked, irrespective of whether the break was actually taken or if it was interrupted by job-related tasks.
The lawsuit alleges that due to Adena’s policy of deducting a meal break even when it was not taken or was shortened, hundreds of employees in similar roles were denied proper compensation for all hours worked. It claims that the healthcare system was aware or should have been aware that its policy led to non-payment of overtime wages, as these healthcare employees frequently worked over forty (40) hours per week.
The class-action lawsuit is seeking compensation for the unpaid overtime wages, asserting that Adena Health System’s practice of deducting meal breaks from their hours worked without appropriate compensation is in violation of labor laws.
Adena Health System has not released an official statement regarding the lawsuit at this time.
A website has been created asking former and current employees to fill out a form if they believe they are deserved overtime wages as a result of being forced to work through, cut short, or not take a lunch break anytime between now and the last two years.
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