Employee Sues New York Hospital Over Improper Compensation for On-Call and Overtime Hours


A nurse filed a proposed collective action on Monday in the Eastern District of New York against defendant NYC Health and Hospital Corp. for the alleged failure to properly compensate her for her on-call and overtime hours.

According to the complaint, the defendant owns and operates a hospital, medical services and care facility referred to as the Coney Island Hospital. The plaintiff works for the defendant as an hourly-paid nurse with a regularly assigned schedule and is also required to be on-call for 3-4 days each week. Each on-call shift spans about 12 hours and, as noted in the complaint, when an employee is called in to work during their on-call shift, they are compensated with an on-call rate. The plaintiff’s on-call rate is $29.30 per hour.

In addition to regular shifts and on-call shifts, nurses must respond to pages on an emergency, as-needed basis for which they are compensated with an overtime rate that has a guaranteed minimum of four overtime hours, the complaint states.

In September of 2021, the plaintiff began to notice that she was not being properly compensated for her on-call and overtime hours. The defendant also never provided the plaintiff with a statement of wages as is required by the Fair Labor Standards Act and New York Labor Laws.

The complaint cites unpaid minimum wages under the FLSA and NYLL, unpaid overtime wages under the FLSA and NYLL, failure to provide wage notices and violation of the wage statement provisions under the NYLL.

The plaintiff seeks class certification for others similarly situated in the proposed FLSA collective action, a declaration that the defendant violated the FLSA and NYLL, an award of all unpaid wages, liquidated and statutory damages, pre- and post-judgement interest, litigation fees and any other relief deemed just by the court.

The plaintiff is represented by Levin-Epstein & Associates, P.C.