When news broke on Friday that Epic Systems workers had filed a class-action lawsuit against the Verona-based software giant over overtime pay, there’s a reason people may have felt a sense of déjà vu.
That’s because this same scenario has now played out four times over the past three years.
Here’s a quick rundown on the new lawsuit, and why Epic’s labor practices seem to get litigated on repeat.
1. The string of lawsuits against Epic are all interrelated.
The four lawsuits are different versions of pretty much the same case.
Each one involves workers alleging that the company should be giving them overtime pay. Currently, the company treats many workers as salaried employees, and as such don’t pay them overtime. Litigants, however, have asserted that the company is miscategorizing them as overtime-exempt.
Differences between the lawsuits become clear when looking at two details: the specific jobs of the plaintiffs, and the time periods for which missing pay has been sought.
In each of the four cases, the Wisconsin pro-labor law firm Hawks Quindel has fought the overtime policies.
2. So far, no lawsuit has resulted in any sort of final ruling on Epic’s overtime pay practices.
Here’s a breakdown of the three previous lawsuits, one of which has been dropped and two of which are ongoing: Nordgren v. Epic involved quality assurance workers, the people who test Epic’s diverse and complicated software systems, and was filed in December of 2013. The parties reached a $5.4 million settlement in that case in 2014.
Lewis v. Epic involves technical writers, the people who wrote up documentation on Epic’s software, and was filed in February of 2015. The case has been held up while attorneys dispute whether workers can sue Epic using a class-action model in the first place .
Long v. Epic also involves technical writers, and was filed at the same time as the Lewis case. This case strictly involves people who worked at Epic before April of 2014, the point at which the company made employees sign an agreement regarding wage complaints. The Lewis case, on the other hand, involves people who worked at Epic after signing that agreement. Long v. Epic has also been held up due to disputes over the class-action nature of the lawsuit.
There was also one other federal lawsuit filed against Epic last year that likewise touched on the company’s labor practices, although it didn’t have to do with overtime pay. In that case, a plaintiff claimed that Epic had wrongfully denied him disability insurance. That case ended with a settlement.
3. The new case is more or less a rehash of the Nordgren case.
That very first lawsuit that ended in the multi-million dollar settlement has not caused Epic to change its policies, according to Hawks Quindel attorneys. That’s why they’ve decided to litigate the exact same issue a second time.
The only difference this time around is the time period under dispute — the plaintiffs in the new case are quality assurance employees who worked at Epic after Dec. 6, 2014.
“We’re disappointed to be back here,” said Bill Parsons, one of the Hawks Quindel lawyers representing the plaintiffs. “There’s a simple solution for this.”
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Epic Systems did not respond to requests for comment. However, they did release the following statement to some media outlets in 2013 when the initial lawsuit was filed :
“We believe the lawsuit is without merit. We provide good, professional jobs to very talented people, and we value their contribution to improving health care. State and federal law make it clear that employees in computer-related jobs who primarily test software are appropriately classified as salaried professionals. That is precisely the role our quality assurance team performs.”
4. One lawsuit could end up before the Supreme Court because of the questions it raises about arbitration agreements.
In a fascinating twist, these cases may end up having broader implications than the way Epic pays its workers. They could actually change the way that pay disputes play out in the first place.
Epic has tried to get the Lewis case dismissed on the grounds that workers signed a contract waiving their right to collective action. In the contracts, workers agreed to bring up all pay disputes in private arbitration — a increasingly popular and controversial way of resolving disputes out of the public courts system.
However, a federal appeals court handed down a groundbreaking decision this May dismissing that motion , saying that such arbitration agreements are actually illegal under federal labor laws.
Epic has already appealed that decision with the Supreme Court. Given that another appellate court recently upheld a similar arbitration deal, it’s not out of the question that the high court may agree to take up the case.
5. Epic has less leeway to dismiss the new lawsuit on technical grounds than it did in the past.
Epic is challenging the 7th Circuit’s ruling that declared the company’s arbitration deal is no good. However, until the court agrees to suspend the ruling — if it does that at all — the circuit’s decision is the law of the land. That means that unlike with other cases, Epic has fewer options to dismiss the class-action lawsuit altogether.
Source: host.madison.com
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