Travel nurses secure $4.4M settlement over unpaid wage claims

SEATTLE (CN) — A federal judge on Tuesday approved a $4.4 million settlement for a class of travel nurses who sued their employer claiming they weren’t paid overtime and their wages were slashed mid-contract.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo Martinez, a George W. Bush appointee, found the multimillion-dollar settlement to be fair, reasonable and adequate, bringing a close to litigation that has been ongoing since 2022.

Two nursers sued NuWest Group Holdings, a recruitment firm specializing in health care placements, accusing the company of forcing them to accept lower wages after they had already uprooted their lives to accept a work assignment. The nurses also claimed the company deceptively altered their pay categorization to avoid paying overtime wages.

More nurses were added to the lawsuit as class representatives, and hundreds of nurses will receive a payout from the settlement. The travel nurses’ legal team will net around $1.5 million in attorney fees and costs. Each of the 12 named plaintiffs will receive $5,000 as a service award.

Before granting final approval, Martinez noted the settlement satisfied all required factors.

“The class representative has adequately represented the class, the proposal was negotiated earnestly, the relief provided to the class is adequate — in this case, I would say, very good results — and the proposal treats class members equitably relative to each other,” Martinez remarked.

The nurses accused NuWest of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act by categorizing large portions of the nurses’ compensation as stipends and excluding the value of those stipends from their regular rate of pay, which resulted in unpaid overtime. Approximately 2,300 nurses are part of the class seeking unpaid overtime wages, and the average settlement check for these workers is around $980. The highest settlement check is over $9,000.

The travel nurses also accused NuWest of violating state laws by engaging in a practice of making “take-it-or-leave-it” demands mid-contract that the nurses accept lower pay than what was originally promised or be fired. Over 400 nurses submitted claims on that count. Of those, the 123 who had documents to support their claims will each receive around $3,000. The remainder will receive around $140 each.

One of the named plaintiffs, a travel nurse named Dana McDermott, claimed her wages were cut one month into a four-month assignment, the nurses wrote in the second amended complaint. McDermott said NuWest forced her to accept the new contract terms or be fired. Those terms included an 81% reduction in her weekly stipend, from $1,085 to $200, and a 6% reduction in her base pay rate.

“Having already spent substantial time and money securing the assignment and taking the steps necessary to ensure compliance with her obligations under the agreement, and unable to find comparable employment in such a short period of time, plaintiff McDermott had no real choice but to continue working the assignment at the lower rate,” the nurses wrote.

The nurses were poised to secure final approval in July, but a procedural error delayed that approval until Tuesday.

NuWest did not respond to a request for comment before press time.