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A judge for the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas has approved a $13.5 million settlement in a wage claim suit against Bayada Home Health Care. The class, which includes about 11,000 nurses who worked for the company between August 2013 and the present, filed suit alleging that Bayada failed to pay them for work performed while off the clock.
The terms of the settlement provide that two named plaintiffs will each receive $30,000, while class counsel will be entitled to $5.2 million. The remaining settlement funds will be paid 50% to the Pennsylvania Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts (IOLTA) Board, and 25% to each of two Pennsylvania nursing schools.
Bayada agreed to the settlement after almost a decade of litigation and only days before the trial in Reed v. Bayada was scheduled to begin.
In their original complaint, the home healthcare nurses claimed that Bayada refused to pay nurses for certain tasks. Unpaid activities included giving or receiving written and verbal reports on patients' statuses at the beginning and end of shifts and completing company-mandated training. The nurses alleged that the activities were part of Bayada's policies, which disregarded standardized nursing practices and the company expert's testimony, who agreed that such activities should be compensated.
Bayada initially argued whether the standard of care required nurses to provide verbal shift reports. The company also questioned whether all nurses gave the reports if there was no indication in their shift notes. Finally, Bayada took the position that nurses had adequate time to complete required training during their shifts.
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