Redlands Community Hospital employees awarded $17 million in suit

REDLANDS - After winning an initial class-action lawsuit against Redlands Community Hospital last summer, a group of about 1,000 former employees have now been awarded more than $17 million in lost wages and damages.

According to San Bernardino Superior Court records, the plaintiffs, Elias Guta Urga, Joel M. Dalangin and Gary Gordon were awarded $17.5 million, plus the costs of the lawsuit, by Judge Janet M. Frangie, who set aside the jury's original award of $55,000.

The plaintiffs' lawyer, Santa-Ana based attorney Frank Coughlin, declined to comment.

The suit alleged that the hospital lowered the base pay of employees working 12-hour shifts after a 1999 state law passed requiring overtime pay for employees working more than eight hours a day.

"They cut the wages to make it look like I was making overtime when I was making the same amount as before," Urga said last year.

"We want to get paid for all of the hours we didn't get paid, according to the law," the former respiratory therapist said in May of 2010.

But the hospital said that its employees had a choice, and the majority said they would rather work the 12-hour shifts.

"In late 1999, the hospital discussed the new law with its staff and gave them an opportunity to vote on keeping 12-hour shifts or changing to 8-hour shifts," said Kathi Sankey-Robinson, vice president of business development and marketing.

"To accommodate the staff, the

hospital adjusted the rate of pay for those working 12-hour shifts to allow for the state-mandated overtime."

She said that a judge's decision not to allow the findings of a Labor and Workforce Development Agency investigation was an error the hospital intends to appeal.

Sankey-Robinson said that the hospital is "disappointed in the judge's recent decision in overturning the jury's financial award," and will "vigorously contest this decision and will appeal accordingly."

Staff Writer Jesse Gill and Redlands Daily Facts archives contributed to this story.

Email Staff Writer Molly Davis at mdavis@redlandsdailyfacts.com

Source: http://www.redlandsdailyfacts.com/ci_18267862?source=rss_viewed

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