San Mateo, CAYet another California based health care facility has been hit with a California wage and hour lawsuit, alleging that hourly employees have not been paid their correct overtime wages, nor have they been provided with rest breaks and meal periods in accordance with California labor law.
The defendant in the case is Sutter West Bay Hospitals. The proposed class action accuses the defendant, on behalf of all qualifying class members, of denying their hourly employees access to meal breaks and rest periods. California law holds that rest periods are taken as required, and that an un-interrupted meal period of not less than thirty minutes be provided prior to the commencement of the fifth hour of work.
Not only is this requirement entrenched within California employment law, the fact remains that were a meal period not duly provided, it means the employee has worked through the meal period and thus should be paid overtime for the 30 minutes of additional work performed.
It is also alleged that hourly employees were provided with non-discretionary bonus pay based upon their job performance. And yet, it is alleged that this bonus pay was not included as part of the calculation of a non-exempt employee’s hourly rate for the purposes of determining the proper overtime rate.
Thus, it is alleged that non-exempt employees of Sutter West Bay Hospitals were not paid correct amounts of overtime, as required under California labor laws.
The wage and hour class action lawsuit is Case No. 2016-cv-538977 in San Mateo County Superior Court for the State of California.
Meanwhile, it has been reported that Ecolab Inc. remains embroiled in four California wage and hour lawsuits that remain pending: this, according to the defendant’s 10-Q filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the first quarter ending March 31st of this year. The report, filed in early May, noted that a fifth lawsuit (Cancilla v. Ecolab, Case No. CV 12-03001 US District Court, Northern District of California), has been settled.
The 10-Q filing noted that three of the lawsuits are pending as class actions and claim violations to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and / or similar violations to state labor laws.
Of the four remaining wage and hour lawsuits still pending, two are based in California: Ross (formerly Icard) v. Ecolab, Case No. C 13-05097 PJH, and Martino v. Ecolab, Case No. 5:14-cv-04358-PSG, both pending in US District Court for the Northern District of California.