ASHEVILLE – A newly filed federal lawsuit says the HCA-owned Mission Health system illegally withheld pay of 1,000 or more employees.
The class and collection action lawsuit filed April 25 by respiratory therapist Sharon McRee said the Tennessee-based HCA “willfully manipulated both the beginning and end of shift time records” for her and other hourly workers “to reflect less time worked when (HCA) submitted these employees’ records to payroll, resulting in less time paid than time worked.”
Other “unlawful wage theft and pay practices” included not paying overtime and not giving meal breaks, even though time for them were taken out of paychecks, said the suit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina in Asheville.
No dollar amount was yet given, but the complaint submitted by McRee’s attorney Matthew Earl Lee of Raleigh called for the certification of a class action suit and for compensatory and liquidated damages to be given for unpaid overtime as well as penalty damages, attorneys’ fees and more.