Washington State Nurses Ass'n v. Sacred Heart Medical Center
Washington State Nurses Ass'n v. Sacred Heart Medical Center
Opinion of the Court
¶1 Washington State Nurses Association (WSNA) seeks overtime pay pursuant to the Minimum Wage Act (MWA), RCW 49.46.130, for work performed by the approximately 1,200 registered nurses employed by Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. Sacred Heart, at all times pertinent to this lawsuit, was obligated by its collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with WSNA to provide its nurses with a paid 15 minute block rest period each four hour work period. The parties do not dispute that when a rest period was missed, Sacred Heart provided the nurses with the equivalent of 30 minutes of
¶2 Relying on a Washington industrial welfare regulation, WAC 296-126-092(4), requiring a 10 minute rest period on the employer’s time for every four hours worked, along with RCW 49.46.130, the nurses claim they are entitled to overtime pay, not just the straight pay they already received, for 10 of the 15 minutes of each rest period they missed. Because they claim they were entitled to 10 minutes of overtime (paid at a rate of time and one-half), the nurses contend they were underpaid the equivalent of 5 minutes of straight time for each missed break. Nurses rely heavily on Wingert v. Yellow Freight Systems, Inc., 146 Wn.2d 841, 50 P.3d 256 (2002), where this court found that an employer’s failure to provide a required 10 minute rest break extended the workday by 10 minutes. This case hinges on how “hours worked” are calculated: whether the 15 minutes nurses spent working through their breaks should be added to or substituted for the 15 minutes they would have spent at rest.
¶3 We hold that both the missed opportunity to rest and the additional labor nurses provide constitute “hours worked.” Even though Sacred Heart did not require the nurses to physically remain at the hospital after the end of the workday to make up their rest periods, nurses are entitled to overtime compensation because they provided additional labor to Sacred Heart.
¶4 We reinstate the trial court’s order awarding damages, attorney fees, and costs to WSNA. However, we reverse the award of double damages ordered by the trial court.
FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
¶5 In 2004, WSNA filed a grievance because Sacred Heart did not consistently provide two CBA-mandated 15
¶6 Since approximately June 2006, nurses who cannot take a rest period complete a “Missed Break Request” form and submit it to a nurse manager or the payroll department. Using these forms, Sacred Heart timekeepers make notations in the electronic timekeeping system. Sacred Heart compensates these missed breaks in straight time, not overtime. Thus, when a nurse works through one 15 minute break while completing an eight hour shift, he or she receives the equivalent of 8.25 hours of straight pay for that day.
¶7 WSNA brought this action against Sacred Heart to determine whether Sacred Heart should have provided nurses overtime pay for their additional labor. Before the trial court made its ruling, Sacred Heart removed the case to federal court because it believed the lawsuit implicated the CBA and federal law. See Wash. State Nurses Ass’n v. Sacred Heart Med. Ctr., No. CV-08-0054-EFS, 2008 WL 1969732, at *1, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38919, at *1-2 (E.D. Wash. May 5, 2008) (unpublished). WSNA responded that its claims were based exclusively on the MWA and would not require interpretation of the CBA. Id. The federal district court agreed with WSNA, concluded there was no federal jurisdiction, and remanded the matter to state court. Id.
¶8 Upon remand, the trial court found,
[cjonsistent with the Washington Supreme Court’s decision in Wingert v. Yellow Freight Systems, Inc., 146 Wn.2d 841, 849, 50*828 P.3d 256 (2002), Vivian Mae Hill and the nurses represented by WSNA . . . who worked through their rest periods provided their employer Sacred Heart Medical Center (SHMC) with additional time worked. Although SHMC provides nurses with a 15-minute rest period for each four hours of work, state law requires only a 10-minute rest period. Therefore, for purposes of this case, ten minutes of nurses’ missed rest break is at issue here and must [be] compensated at the appropriate time and one-half rate of a nurse’s “regular rate of pay” when it results in overtime pursuant to RCW 49.46.130.
Clerk’s Papers (CP) at 921. The trial court granted summary-judgment for plaintiff WSNA, concluding that Sacred Heart owed WSNA $52,361.41 in compensation and prejudgment interest, $52,361.41 in double damages for a willful violation, $200,000.00 in attorney fees, and $22,545.42 in expenses, for a total judgment of $327,268.24. Id. at 1559-60.
¶9 The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court and dismissed the lawsuit. Wash. State Nurses Ass’n v. Sacred Heart Med. Ctr., 163 Wn. App. 272, 282, 258 P.3d 96 (2011). The court reasoned that the forgone rest periods are more accurately viewed as providing the employer with additional labor during the workday than as an extension of the workday. Id. at 281. The Court of Appeals concluded that “entitlement to time and one-half under the MWA turns on the amount of time an employee is actually required to spend at the prescribed workplace, with no reference to a number of hours she or he is ‘deemed’ to have worked.” Id.
ANALYSIS
¶10 This dispute was resolved by summary judgment, the material facts are undisputed, and the questions presented are all questions of law. For these reasons, our review is de novo. Davis v. Microsoft Corp., 149 Wn.2d 521, 530-31, 70 P.3d 126 (2003).
Except as otherwise provided in this section, no employer shall employ any of his or her employees for a work week longer than forty hours unless such employee receives compensation for his or her employment in excess of the hours above specified at a rate not less than one and one-half times the regular rate at which he or she is employed.
According to WAC 296-126-092(4), “Employees shall be allowed a rest period of not less than ten minutes, on the employer’s time, for each four hours of working time.... No employee shall be required to work more than three hours without a rest period.” “ ‘Hours worked’ shall be considered to mean all hours during which the employee is authorized or required by the employer to be on duty on the employer’s premises or at a prescribed work place.” WAC 296-126--002(8). “An analysis of‘hours worked’ must be determined on a case-by-case basis, depending on the facts.” Wash. Dep’t of Labor & Indus., Admin. Policy ES.C.2 § 1, at 1. Under federal law, rest periods “must be counted as hours worked” and “may not be offset against other working time.” 29 C.F.R. § 785.18; see also Inniss v. Tandy Corp., 141 Wn.2d 517, 525, 7 P.3d 807 (2000) (this court may consider the Code of Federal Regulations as persuasive authority when construing provisions of the MWA).
¶12 This court’s decision in Wingert frames the issue presented here. In Wingert, 146 Wn.2d at 845-46, 849, the employer required its employees to immediately begin two-hour overtime shifts after completing their normal shift, without a break to separate the two shifts, in violation of an industrial welfare act (IWA) (chapter 49.12 RCW) regulation, WAC 296-126-092(4). The court found,
Employees who must work through their overtime break are, in effect, providing Yellow Freight with an additional 10 minutes of labor during the first two hours of their overtime assignments. When the employees are not provided with the mandated rest period, their workday is extended by 10 minutes. Taking the regulation into account, the employees are entitled to be compensated by Yellow Freight for 2 hours and 10 minutes of work.
¶13 Based on Wingert, WSNA argues that if a 40 hour workweek is extended by 10 minutes when a break is missed, then nurses are entitled to overtime pay for their missed breaks. Sacred Heart responds that Wingert stands for the proposition that the IWA, not the MWA, dictates the remedy for missed breaks: straight pay compensation.
¶14 Sacred Heart asserts and the Court of Appeals agreed that while there may have been a violation of WAC 296-126-092(4), there was no violation of the MWA, the basis of WSNA’s claim for overtime compensation.
¶16 Because both the rest break time and additional labor time constitute “hours worked,” nurses’ workdays were extended by 15 minutes when they missed breaks. A nurse who misses a break is already compensated by Sacred Heart for the 15 minute break as well as 15 minutes for the labor. Although the nurses worked during rest periods, the nurses were still entitled to compensation for 10 minutes of “hours worked” for each missed break. WAC 296-126-092(4). The additional labor Sacred Heart received when the nurses worked through their breaks was the equivalent of labor Sacred Heart otherwise would have secured by requiring nurses to work overtime only at the end of their shifts. By putting nurses in a situation where they could not take their breaks, in violation of WAC 296-126-092(4), Sacred Heart effectively “authorized or required” nurses “to be on duty on the employer’s premises” to perform work equivalent to an overtime shift after the end of their normal workday. WAC 296-126-002(8). Even though the nurses did not physically remain past the time they would normally go home, Sacred Heart may not avoid its obligation to provide 10 minutes of “hours worked” for rest or to treat time spent working as “hours worked.”
¶ 18 As noted by WSNA, if this court were to accept Sacred Heart’s argument, Sacred Heart would be incentivized to employ fewer nurses for each shift, relying on those nurses to bear a heavy burden on busy days. In contrast, compensating employees who forgo their rest periods with overtime pay will help to ensure that employers continue to provide these breaks to their employees. Rest periods are mandatory and promote employee efficiency. 29 C.F.R. § 785.18. Further, rest periods help ensure nurses can maintain the necessary awareness and focus required to provide safe and quality patient care.
¶19 Based on our decision in Wingert, on the statutes and regulations governing overtime compensation and rest breaks, and on considerations of employee health and patient care, we hold that the nurses are entitled to overtime compensation for the first 10 minutes of each break they missed.
¶21 WSNA correctly observes that “[w]hile it is true that an employee cannot enforce a collective bargaining agreement in state court, Washington courts have consistently and repeatedly rejected the idea that reference to a CBA extinguishes a claim based on a state law.” Suppl. Br. of Pet’r Wash. State Nurses Ass’n at 7-8 (citation omitted). We agree with the federal court’s conclusion that
the CBA need not be interpreted in order to determine whether Sacred Heart complied with the MWA. In the event that [WSNA] is successful and damages need to be calculated, reference to the CBA will be required, but there is no indication that determining a particular nurse’s wage rate will require . interpretation of the CBA.
Wash. State Nurses Ass’n, 2008 WL 1969732, at *1, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 38919, at *3. The Court of Appeals concluded that the two parties have different views of the meaning of the CBA. Wash. State Nurses Ass’n, 163 Wn. App. at 282. However, what is actually in dispute is whether missed rest periods trigger overtime payment for the first 10 minutes of each missed break under state law, not the meaning of the CBA.
¶22 We agree with WSNA that it is unnecessary to interpret the CBA to resolve the legal issue in this case.
¶23 Because we conclude that Sacred Heart violated the MWA, we must also decide whether the trial court properly awarded double damages to WSNA. “The question of whether the employer willfully withheld money owed ... is a question of fact; our review is limited to whether there
¶24 The trial court granted summary judgment to WSNA on the question of whether Sacred Heart’s failure to pay overtime wages was a willful violation and determined there was no bona fide dispute as defined by Washington cases interpreting RCW 49.52.070.
¶25 RCW 49.52.070 states, “Any employer ... who shall violate any of the provisions of RCW 49.52.050 (1) and (2) shall be liable in a civil action by the aggrieved employee ... to judgment for twice the amount of the wages unlawfully rebated or withheld by way of exemplary damages, together with costs of suit and a reasonable sum for attorney’s fees.” RCW 49.52.050(2) in turn makes it illegal for an employer to act “[w]ilfully and with intent to deprive the employee of any part of his or her wages.” Where an employer fails to pay wages owed, only two instances negate a finding of willfulness: (1) “ ‘the employer was careless or erred in failing to pay’ ” or (2) “ ‘a “bona fide” dispute existed between the employer and employee regarding the payment of wages.’ ” Morgan v. Kingen, 166 Wn.2d 526, 534, 210 P.3d 995 (2009) (quoting Schilling, 136 Wn.2d at 160). A bona fide dispute is a “ ‘fairly debatable’ ” dispute over whether all or a portion of wages must be paid. Schilling, 136 Wn.2d at 161. The burden falls on the employer to show the bona fide dispute exception applies. See id. at 165. Generally, an employer who follows the provisions of a CBA “with respect to overtime wages and compensatory time” does not willfully deprive employees of wages or salary. Champagne v. Thurston County, 163 Wn.2d 69, 82, 178 P.3d 936 (2008).
¶26 WSNA maintains there is no bona fide dispute here because Sacred Heart does no more than present a contrary
¶27 Sacred Heart responds that WSNA requests an unprecedented remedy that goes beyond that which was awarded in Wingert. It further claims that there was no willful deprivation because it fully complied with the CBA.
¶28 We find a bona fide dispute existed between Sacred Heart and WSNA regarding whether straight pay or overtime pay was the appropriate method of compensation for the missed rest periods. As a result of the 2004-2006 arbitration regarding the same type of missed breaks at issue here, the arbitrator interpreted the CBA by ordering Sacred Heart to compensate its nurses for each missed break with 15 minutes of straight pay. The arbitrator did not require any overtime compensation for missed breaks.
¶29 In Champagne, 163 Wn.2d at 82, this court held that the employer’s compensation scheme, paying its employees additional pay at the end of the month subsequent to the month in which it is earned, violated former WAC 296-128-035 (1989). Yet, the court concluded that because the scheme complied with the CBA and there was no allegation of bad faith, “the record lacks the requisite substantial evidence that gives rise to a finding of willful withholding.” Id.
¶30 As in Champagne, the employer in this case followed the terms of a CBA as interpreted by an arbitrator. See id.
¶31 Finally, we must decide whether the trial court properly awarded attorney fees and costs to WSNA.
¶32 Although the trial court awarded attorney fees pursuant to RCW 49.52.070 because it found a willful deprivation, WSNA also requested attorney fees and costs under RCW 49.48.030 and 49.46.090(1) (providing for attorney fees and costs for any person who is successful in recovering judgment for wages or salary owed to him or her). WSNA further requested from the trial court “[s]uch other and further relief as the Court deems just and proper.” CP at 29. WSNA again raised RCW 49.48.030 and 49.46.090(1) at the Court of Appeals. Because we hold Sacred Heart improperly failed to pay overtime compensation we affirm the award of attorney fees and costs.
CONCLUSION
¶33 We reinstate the trial court’s order awarding damages, attorney fees, and costs to WSNA. Because the record in this case does not provide substantial evidence to support a finding that Sacred Heart willfully deprived its nurses of wages, we reverse the award of double damages.
Although WAC 296-126-092 applies to the IWA, not the MWA, the two statutory schemes often work in concert. For example, WAC 296-126-092 applies to all occupations subject to the IWA. In turn, the IWA broadly applies to all employees. RCW 49.12.005.
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