Legacy Emanuel Hit By Nursing Staff Class Action Suit Over Wages

PORTLAND, OR – A woman who worked as a nurse at Legacy Emanuel Hospital for seven years is suing her former employer for money that she says Legacy refused to pay. Julianne Hunter's suit in Portland federal court is a class-action suit on behalf of herself and other nursing staff.

Hunter worked at Emanuel from March 2009 through April 2016.

Her suit says that while Legacy regularly deducted 30 minutes of pay from people's checks for lunch breaks, nurses often had to work through those breaks. The suit says when that happened, the staff ended up working for free.

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Hunter says that nurses always carried pagers that they were required to answer even if they were on break, adding that they were often called to perform any number of tasks from answering a question from a patient to organizing equipment.

Hunter and the others are asking for $200 for every violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.

As Patch reported in September, this is not Legacy's first time having to answer for allegedly failing to compensate people for missed meal periods.

That month they were fined $5,156,000 for 5,156 instances of missed breaks.

The previous November, they were fined $277,000 for thousands of other missed breaks.

Legacy has not yet responded to Hunter's accusations.

Photo via Legacy Health.