PLAINTIFF HOME HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROPERLY CERTIFIED TO BRING CLASS ACTION SUIT ALLEGING INADEQUATE PAY (SECOND DEPT).
The Second Department determined the plaintiff home health care workers were properly certified to bring a class action suit alleging inadequate pay in violation of the minimum wage requirements of the Labor Law. The plaintiffs worked at clients’ residences in 24-hour shifts. They were paid an hourly rate for the 12 daytime hours of their 24-hour shifts and a flat rate for the 12 nighttime hours. The plaintiffs argue they were entitled to the minimum wage for each hour of their 24-hour shifts:
The plaintiffs were required to be at the clients’ residences and were also required to perform services there if called upon to do so. To interpret that regulation to mean that the plaintiffs were not, during those nighttime hours, “required to be available for work” simply because it turned out that they were not called upon to perform services is contrary to the plain meaning of “available” … . …[T]o the extent that the members of the proposed class were not “residential” employees who “live[d] on the premises of the employer,” they were entitled to be paid the minimum wage for all 24 hours of their shifts, regardless of whether they were afforded opportunities for sleep and meals … . …
… [T]he plaintiffs established the existence of the five prerequisites to class certification … , and none of the factors listed in CPLR 902 warranted a denial of the motion … . Andryeyeva v New York Health Care, Inc., 2017 NY Slip Op 06421, Second Dept 9-13-17
Similar issues and result in Moreno v Future Care Health Servs., Inc., 2017 NY Slip Op 06439, Second Dept 9-13-17
EMPLOYMENT LAW (PLAINTIFF HOME HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROPERLY CERTIFIED TO BRING CLASS ACTION SUIT ALLEGING INADEQUATE PAY (SECOND DEPT))/LABOR LAW (PLAINTIFF HOME HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROPERLY CERTIFIED TO BRING CLASS ACTION SUIT ALLEGING INADEQUATE PAY (SECOND DEPT))/CIVIL PROCEDURE (PLAINTIFF HOME HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROPERLY CERTIFIED TO BRING CLASS ACTION SUIT ALLEGING INADEQUATE PAY (SECOND DEPT))/CLASS ACTIONS (PLAINTIFF HOME HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROPERLY CERTIFIED TO BRING CLASS ACTION SUIT ALLEGING INADEQUATE PAY (SECOND DEPT))/HOME HEALTH CARE WORKERS (EMPLOYMENT LAW, PLAINTIFF HOME HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROPERLY CERTIFIED TO BRING CLASS ACTION SUIT ALLEGING INADEQUATE PAY (SECOND DEPT))/MINIMUM WAGE (PLAINTIFF HOME HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROPERLY CERTIFIED TO BRING CLASS ACTION SUIT ALLEGING INADEQUATE PAY (SECOND DEPT))