By Pepper Fisher
PORT ANGELES – A former employee of Olympic Medical Center (OMC) has filed a class action lawsuit, seeking back wages and other damages she believes she’s owed because of ongoing policies that OMC applies to its hourly workers’ wages.
The suit, filed by the attorney for Jennifer Britt in US District Court in Tacoma on Saturday, claims that OMC deducts 30 minutes per day from their “non-exempt” workers’ hours for meal breaks, whether they have time to take that break or not. The suit also claims that Britt was subjected to its common practice of automatically rounding her recorded time punches to the nearest 15-minute increment when it benefited OMC.
The result, according to the claim, was that Britt was underpaid for the five years she worked for OMC, from 2017 to 2022, including overtime pay she would have received if it weren’t for these policies.
Britt worked for OMC as a Certified Medical Coder in Port Angeles. The suit says OMC failed to provide Britt and the Putative Class Members with bona fide meal periods, but automatically deducted 30 minutes from their time records, each shift they work, regardless of whether the employees actually receive a full, uninterrupted, 30-minute meal period.
Instead, OMC requires Britt and others to remain on-duty and working throughout their shifts, continuously subjecting them to interruptions, including during their unpaid meal periods, according to the suit.
The suit is seeking to recover the alleged unpaid wages and damages equaling those unpaid wages, plus attorney fees.
We reached out to officials at Olympic Medical Center, and received the following statement: “OMC believes it is essential for our staff to receive their meal and rest breaks. We fully comply with all applicable laws and policies. We do not believe there is merit to the claims and disagree with the facts set forth in the complaint. OMC will vigorously defend against the complaint.”
We also reached out to Britt’s attorney, Michael Josephson at mybackwages.com, but have yet to receive a response.