Valley Children’s wants to settle 2022 wage theft case. Will it void other worker claims?
Valley Children’s Hospital wants to settle a class action lawsuit over unpaid wages that nurses launched in 2022 with a gross amount of $400,000, Madera County court records show. But the attorney representing a nurse who sued the hospital for wage theft more recently says the proposed settlement would fall short of what Valley Children’s employees are truly owed for various alleged labor code violations.
“If timely action isn’t taken, Valley Children’s nurses and on-call employees stand to lose tens of thousands of dollars in earned wages,” attorney Brian Whelan said in a Monday email to The Fresno Bee.
The lawsuit filed in 2022 by nurses Briana Westfall and Gloria Garcia, on behalf of themselves and all other affected staff, claims labor code violations, including a failure to pay all wages and overtime wages, missed meal and rest breaks, and a failure to reimburse expenses, among other items.
Whelan — the lawyer who separately represents a nurse in a similar action — says that the proposed settlement does not cover pay owed to employees for on-call shifts that resulted in real compensation of less than the minimum wage, which is the foremost alleged labor code violation in his client’s recent complaint.
Whelan’s client, registered nurse Bonnie Ferreria, filed a lawsuit against Valley Children’s in early June. Ferreria’s lawsuit, filed on behalf of herself and all other employees affected between 2020-2024, accuses the nonprofit of intentionally paying nurses less than the minimum wage for their mandatory on-call shifts, and of owing $5 million in backpay.
As a result of that suit, Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz announced his office will be investigating whether the Madera County hospital committed wage theft at its Fresno facilities.
Valley Children’s on Monday continued to deny claims of labor code violations brought forth by the employees.
“Although Valley Children’s Hospital strongly denies all allegations in the Westfall lawsuit, we’ve agreed to a settlement so we and our employees can focus on providing high-quality healthcare to our patients and our community, rather than on litigation. The court has preliminarily approved the settlement,” the hospital said in an email to The bee. “A duplicate lawsuit, known as the Ferreria matter, similarly is without merit.”
Records show Valley Children’s attorneys first asked the court for preliminary approval of the settlement terms just 11 days after Ferreria filed her lawsuit in June. The court granted that preliminary approval in July.
But Ferreria, who says her base pay at the hospital is $54 per hour, wrote in a statement to the court that she and Whelan did not become aware of the looming settlement for the 2022 case until Aug. 24, when the nurse received a notice in the mail that she was entitled to receive an estimated $54.58.
“I conservatively estimate that the amount that I am owed is not less than $27,832, or 500 times the preliminarily approved settlement agreement,” Ferreria wrote. “I have recently spoken with dozens of VCH employees about the recently mailed notice of preliminary class settlement who, like me, have worked on-call shifts and been paid less than minimum wage to work these on-call shifts. People are frustrated and upset that VCH is trying to reduce their claims to less than a single hour of their base pay when they are owed significantly more.”
Whelan has filed a motion to intervene in the 2022 case before the settlement is given final approval. He wrote in a statement to the court that, despite several points of contact, Valley Children’s legal counsel — “seemingly in order to try and avoid intervention and secure a lower settlement” — failed to inform him about the settlement the hospital was working on for the 2022 case.
“If this deal were genuinely advantageous for all VCH employees, VCH would have disclosed the details to the media in June when questions about Ms. Ferreria’s case first arose,” Whelan said in his email to The Bee. “Furthermore, if the deal were beneficial, VCH’s legal team would have been forthright with Ferreria’s counsel from the beginning, rather than using legal privilege to conceal information.”
He also noted in court documents that the settlement document includes the words “a release of all claims arising out of their employment with Defendant.” In his statement to the court, he said that clause “obviously sweeps in the Ferreria claims.”
“The Westfall lawsuit does not replicate the claims made in the Ferreria lawsuit, but it poses a risk of settling all the claims collectively,” Whelan wrote to The Bee.
In Valley Children’s statement to The Bee, the hospital confirmed that Ferreria’s “potential claims will be settled under the ‘Westfall’ resolution.”
“Valley Children’s looks forward to putting these cases behind us,” the hospital said.
Employees covered by the proposed Westfall agreement who find it unreasonable, the settlement document states, must ensure that the settlement administrator receives their objections by Sept. 30.
This story was originally published September 10, 2024 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Valley Children’s wants to settle 2022 wage theft case. Will it void other worker claims?."
