Workers who secure street parking for movie and TV shoots in the city are suing major studios, saying the studios often underpaid them for working long hours in trying conditions.
The workers, called parking production assistants, play the unglamorous role of keeping parking spaces clear for movie trucks and trailers and watching over the film vehicles in 12-hour shifts at the sets of such films as “American Hustle” and “The Bourne Legacy,” according to their federal labor law suits.
“We’re always overlooked and underpaid,” parking assistant Christian Pellot said at a news conference Wednesday. “We’re subjected to sleeping in our cars and using the bathroom in buckets … when these billion-dollar companies have the money to at least give us a Porta-Potty.”
Pellot and several other workers sued Lionsgate, NBCUniversal, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Bros. and others on Tuesday.
Lionsgate is based in Santa Monica, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia. NBCUniversal is based in New York. Sony Pictures Entertainment is based in Culver City, California. And Warner Bros. is based in Burbank, California. They declined to comment Wednesday on the lawsuits, which follow similar suits in recent years.
The parking coordinators get paid a flat rate, commonly $150, for a 12-hour shift, according to their lawyer, James Vagnini.
“It should be a job that’s exciting. Who wouldn’t want to work on a set with celebrities and all these great crews?” Vagnini said, but the parking assistants have “been ignored, subjected to horrible conditions and, now, unfairly underpaid.”
The workers say they often aren’t paid for all their hours and don’t get overtime while sometimes working 80 or even more than 100 hours a week. Many use their own cars to hold parking spots and to try to stay warm or cool.
“I’ve had co-workers who have lost toes” because they couldn’t afford to idle their engines for hours, said Pellot, who has worked in the field for five years.
With no access to set restrooms unless filming is active, the parking workers have to try to use restrooms at local businesses or resort to using buckets or bottles in their cars, according to the lawsuits, which seek class action status and unspecified damages.
Meanwhile, local residents sometimes get angry with the parking assistants, said Corey Leach, who has worked in the job for eight years.
Leach settled a similar wage suit against The Weinstein Co. and others in 2012, for terms not disclosed in court documents. He said he’s now suing again in hopes of making broader changes.
– Staff Writers Rachelle Blidner and Jennifer Peltz, Associated Press
Read original article from ABC News
People Who Worked on Major Hollywood Sets Say They Were Forced to Pee in Their Cars
Corey Leach was excited about the idea of working for Hollywood, even if he lives in New York City. He found out about a job as a parking production assistant about a decade ago — the person who keeps the streets clear of cars and pedestrians when studios do a shoot in a neighborhood and guards production vehicles and equipment while they’re on set. “It seemed like an interesting job, who doesn’t want to work in Hollywood,” he said. “You’re so excited in the beginning.”
But the reality has turned out to be far from glamorous. “Once you realize the reality of it, you say, ‘Hold on, something is wrong,’” he said.
Late on Tuesday night, Leach and a group of more than 100 people who have worked as parking assistants on movie and television sets in New York City filed class action lawsuits against five major studios: Lions Gate, Ratpac-Dune, Sony, Universal, and Warner Brothers. The complaints allege that parking production assistants, or PPAs, were routinely and illegally denied wages and forced to endure inhumane conditions in their jobs. Sony declined to comment, while the other studios couldn’t be reached.
The lawsuits allege that the plaintiffs, who all worked as PPAs over the last six years, were paid flat rates of somewhere between $140 to $160 per 12-hour shift for weeks that averaged between 60 and 100 hours, sometimes more. At the same time, the complaint alleges that if PPAs were called to a site but didn’t work at least four hours, they wouldn’t be paid at all. Leach says his hours sometimes added up to more than 120 straight in a week, yet he’s seen people paid as little as $110 a shift.
The attorney representing all of the lawyers, James Vagnini, pointed out that in other cities, studios rely on police departments to do this kind of work. But in New York, studios pull workers from the same group of non-union, private-sector employees — the only people at a shoot who aren’t unionized. “When you’re skimming 100 bucks, 200 bucks off of every paycheck, it saved [studios] millions of dollars,” he said.
Perhaps even worse than the low pay, however, is some of the things the PPAs say they had to endure on the job. PPAs aren’t allowed to leave the sites for inclement weather, if the site gets shut down, to get food, or to use the restroom. “We’re out there 24 hours, we don’t have bathrooms,” Leach said. “The on-location bathroom is not made available to us.”
The solutions that the employees say they have had to resort to are disturbing. Many wear diapers; others say they had to urinate or defecate into bottles or buckets in their cars. “Holding it when you’ve got to go…over the years that wears on your body,” Leach said. “That’s unhuman.”
“They can’t control it sometimes and just go,” Vagnini added. “It’s embarrassing.”
The PPAs also say they weren’t allowed to leave the sites in the middle of cold winter weather or sweltering summer heat and weren’t allowed to bring in external heaters, instead having to run their vehicles on their own dime, as they are not compensated for gas. “In the summertime, you’re running the car because it’s hot and you need the AC,” Leach explained. “In the winter time you’re running the car because you need heat. But you’re not being reimbursed for gas or anything.”
Some stories are even more extreme. “One gentleman had to have his toes amputated because he got severe frostbite,” Vagnini said. Others reported different health effects, such as bad circulation or back issues, from sitting in their cars for such long periods.
The lawsuits seek to have the workers paid back wages that they say they are owed in unpaid minimum wage and overtime as well as damages, which could include compensation for the health impacts of their working conditions. “I think there will be some additional damages for these individuals besides pay,” Vagnini said. Besides gas, PPAs say they have to use their own vehicles and buy their own food even though other crew are fed. “They’re paying out of pocket expenses that should be paid by studios and it’s coming out of already very low pay. Take that into consideration and they’re probably not making even minimum wages.”
And while it isn’t part of the complaints, Vagnini noted that there is a racial aspect to the issue at a time when Hollywood studios are already under heavy criticism about a lack of diversity, which is showing up in this weekend’s Oscars awards. The people who do these jobs “are predominantly, if not entirely, African American and Hispanic,” he said. “I’ve yet to see any Caucasian individual that this is happening to.”
Leach has noticed the same thing. “From the top to the bottom it’s a predominantly white [business], we’re on the bottom of the totem pole,” he said. “It’s not a bunch of white people coming to this position, it’s a bunch of black and Latino people.”
– Staff Writer Bryce Covert, Think Progress
Read original article from Think Progress
Workers Who Reserve Parking Spots for Film Sets Denounce Conditions in Suit
For Christian Pellot, most weeks begin the same way, with a text from an unfamiliar number telling him to show up at a specific address. When he arrives, he is told to sign a wage form, with the hours and pay rate to be filled in at a later date. Then his work begins, sitting for days and nights in a parked vehicle to save street spots for any one of the scores of television, movie and commercial productions filmed around New York each year.
In a class-action complaint filed this week, Mr. Pellot and more than 100 other parking production assistants — almost all of them black or Hispanic — charged that several major studios and production companies that do business in the greater New York area systematically underpay these workers, deny them minimum wage and overtime pay to which they are legally entitled, forge time sheets, and threaten to withhold future jobs if they do not comply.
At a news conference outside the now-closed Ziegfeld Theater, several plaintiffs gathered on Wednesday to describe their experiences working on movies like “Trainwreck,” “American Hustle” and “The Amazing Spider-Man.”
“Without us, there are no movies and no shows, and yet we’re still overlooked and underpaid,” said Mr. Pellot, 43, a single father of two daughters from East New York, Brooklyn, who said he had worked as many as 150 hours a week on productions like “The Wolf of Wall Street.” “All we want is our fair share.”
The suit names Lions Gate Entertainment, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures and NBCUniversal, whose representatives all declined to give a statement, as well as Marvel Studios, which did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Parking production assistants are the invisible laborers in an industry that spent $8.7 billion in the city in 2014, according to one study. Most New Yorkers grumble when they see the telltale “No Parking” signs on lampposts. But long before the trailers and movie stars arrive on set, parking production assistants carry out their decidedly unglamorous task. They say that in addition to the long hours and low wages, they are forced to work under onerous and degrading conditions. Many of the workers said that because they were denied breaks and access to restrooms, they were often forced to relieve themselves in buckets or bags in their cars.
“It is just completely humiliating,” said Robert Tracey, 58, who has taken to wearing adult diapers after developing an enlarged prostate while on the job. Still, Mr. Tracey noted that some of his co-workers have even worse health consequences, including one man who lost several toes to frostbite after a winter spent sleeping in an inadequately heated car.
The complaint details a system whereby parking production assistants are given a flat rate for a full 12-hour shift, or a six-hour half shift. However, if they work too few hours to meet a minimum, they are paid nothing for their time, the suit alleges. And if they exceed the set hours, the suit charges, time sheets are falsified to give the appearance of complying with wage laws.
James A. Vagnini, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, described this practice as “backing into” the time sheets.
“Basically they are fudging the hours in order for it to neatly fit into the shift pay, no matter how many hours the guys worked,” he said. “It makes it look like they are abiding by the law and still staying on budget when in fact they are shortchanging the workers.”
While the complaint does not accuse the employers of racial discrimination, both the lawyers handling the case and the plaintiffs noted that the situation overwhelmingly affected minorities.
“When big business wants to save a couple of dollars, they usually turn to their minorities,” said Mr. Vagnini, a partner at Valli Kane & Vagnini.
“At first it seemed like a coincidence; I didn’t want to think about it along racial lines,” said Stevie Leach, 35, a parking production assistant. “But then I just couldn’t deny it anymore.”
Compounding the problem is that parking production assistants have been repeatedly stymied in their efforts to unionize, lawyers said.
“We’re not like the Teamsters or anyone else on set, really,” Alexander Campbell, 58, said. “We don’t have anyone out there protecting our interests.”
Pulling a hood over his head, Mr. Campbell headed into the rain, back toward his car.
– Staff Writer Noah Remnick, New York Times
Read original article from New York Times
$4M Settlement Awarded in Sara Lee Discrimination Case
Federal attorneys with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission today announced a $4 million settlement for former workers at the now closed Sara Lee factory in Paris.
The settlement is said to be the largest in the history of the EEOC in Dallas involving a hostile work environment.
This past Febuary, the EEOC released its findings, the results of a two year investigation into complaints.
It found violations of civil rights, that black employees suffered intimidation, racial taunts such as being called the ‘N’ word, and graffiti, and were steered into hazardous areas of the plant, exposing them to toxic materials.
More than two dozen workers from the now-shut down baking factory are part of the federal lawsuit.
Sara Lee, now a subsidiary of Tyson, sent CBS11 a statement saying in part they’re “committed to treating team members with dignatiy and respect and have a policy against harassment and discrimination.”
While the company says it doesn’t agree with all of the allegations in this case, it believes it makes sense to resolve this matter.
– Originally published in CBS DFW
Read original article from CBS DFW
The EEOC and Sara Lee: A Landmark Discrimination Case in Texas
After a two year investigation into complaints of civil rights and health violations, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced a $4 million settlement for former employees at the Sara Lee factory located in Paris, Texas. This case marks the largest settlement in EEOC history involving a hostile work environment. The EEOC took on the case after twenty-five workers filed complaints against the company during their time at the now-shuttered factory, which closed in 2011. Attorneys now estimate that over seventy employees stand to benefit from the settlement. In addition to financial reparations, the company will be required to implement measures to prevent workplace discrimination and to submit regular reports to the EEOC. Read on for a look inside the landmark case.
THE ALLEGATIONS AGAINST SARA LEE
The EEOC’s two year investigation found that black employees were targets of intimidation and were denied promotions that went to their white peers. Black employees reported racial slurs and graffiti during their time at the factory, incidents which were corroborated by the EEOC. A lawsuit filed separately from the EEOC complaint revealed that the graffiti included racial slurs, threats, and crude drawings of apes and black men with nooses. A large portion of the alleged abuse came from white supervisors within the factory and several Sara Lee officials have been accused of ignoring complaints from black employees about the conditions within the factory. In addition, workers were reportedly exposed to black mold asbestos and other toxins during their daily work. The working conditions were so hazardous that:
One of the cake lines was nicknamed the ‘cancer line,’ because so many people were getting sick, said Sara Kane, one of the workers’ attorneys, of the law office Valli, Kane & Vagnini.
According to the investigation, black employees were exposed to these conditions while their white colleagues were promoted to positions located in safer areas of the factory. These white employees were allegedly often less-experienced than their black co-workers but they received promotions nevertheless.
According to the EEOC’s report, several black employees contracted cancer and other diseases as a direct result to their exposure to toxins in the workplace. When black employees reported their diseases to management, their complaints were either ignored or dismissed as being unrelated to working conditions within the factory. The closure of the factory in 2011 meant that the EEOC had relatively limited exposure to the physical conditions of the factory, so the investigation did rely heavily on interviews with employees.
THE ROLE OF THE EEOC
The EEOC enforces federal laws against discrimination in most companies with 15 employees or more (although this can vary according to certain jurisdictions and circumstances). The EEOC processes both private sector and federal sector violations of discrimination laws, although it takes a more active investigative role in private sector cases. There are two distinct private sector and a federal sector mediation programs, which each offer dispute resolution with EEOC cooperation. If conciliation cannot resolve a private sector dispute, the EEOC has the right to pursue litigation and also has a right to participate in an ongoing lawsuit. According to the EEOC website,
The EEOC has the authority to investigate charges of discrimination against employers who are covered by the law. Our role in an investigation is to fairly and accurately assess the allegations in the charge and then make a finding. If we find that discrimination has occurred, we will try to settle the charge. If we aren’t successful, we have the authority to file a lawsuit to protect the rights of individuals and the interests of the public. We do not, however, file lawsuits in all cases where we find discrimination.
The EEOC may handle tens of thousands of complaints every year, but they very rarely escalate to the heights that the Sara Lee case has, which makes the future of Sara Lee critically important. If Sara Lee complies with the EEOC regulations and actively changes its workplace environment in the coming years, it will serve as a model for other companies that have had large-scale reports of discrimination. The successful transformation of the Sara Lee case will lie with its parent company–Tyson Foods.
A NEW NAME AND A NEW BRAND
In 2012, so chronologically after the alleged abuse occurred, Sara Lee went through a major re-branding, effectively splitting the business in two. The food side of the business was labeled Hillshire Brands while the tea and coffee end of the company (centered in Europe) was named D.E. Master Blenders 1753. The name change was speculated to have been prompted by lackluster sales of meat products.
In 2014, Hillshire Brands completed a merger with Tyson Foods, Inc. which The Wall Street Journal referred to as the “meat industry’s biggest deal.” After the merger, Hillshire’s chief executive Sean Connolly stepped down, clearing the way for new leadership. However, the Sara Lee discrimination case did not disappear with the name change. Although headlines associate the case with Sara Lee, Tyson is now liable for the settlement and for rebuilding the brand’s image in the wake of the EEOC investigation. In an interview with Buzzfeed News, Tyson Foods spokesperson Worth Sparkman said the company is
‘Committed to treating our team members with dignity and respect and have a policy against harassment and discrimination,’ noting Tyson Foods requires annual training and offers a toll-free help line for workers to report any concerns without fear of retaliation. ‘While we don’t agree with all of the allegations in this case, we oppose any unlawful discrimination in the workplace and believe it makes sense to resolve this matter,’ Sparkman wrote in an email. When asked which allegations the company disagrees with Sparkman said, via email, ‘We’ll point out that any alleged conduct in this case occurred before portions of Sara Lee were acquired by Tyson Foods in 2014.’
The Tyson brand has also had a series of legal skirmishes over working conditions over the past few years. This November, the Supreme Court heard a case against Tyson in which employees argued that Tyson unlawfully failed to pay for the time it took them to put on and then remove safety equipment during their daily tasks. In a lower court, employees were awarded half of what their counsel requested. The case has raised interesting questions about collective action lawsuits, as the case involves more than 3,000 workers in total: Should that many employees be allowed to file their complaint at one time, in a single case?
The Supreme Court has approached the case less as an issue of wage violations and more as a debate over what the threshold should be for the number of participants in a collective action lawsuit. Yet, if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the employees, Tyson may pay out even more than they did in the Sara Lee case–approximately $6 million.
CONCLUSION
The Sara Lee case is a unique one in that a significant number of workers were courageous enough to file complaints and patient enough to wait for the legislative process to work over several years. Not every discrimination case is investigated by the EEOC, either because there is not sufficient evidence or because victims do not feel safe reporting misconduct. Hopefully, the Sara Lee case will inspire other companies to enact preventative measures to disband discrimination. The EEOC has delivered a decisive victory for the employees of the Texas factory, we’ll have to see what effects it might have in future discrimination cases.
– Staff Writer Jillian Sequeira, Law Street Media
Read original article in Law Street Media
Sara Lee agrees to pay $4M to black employees who say they were called racial slurs and exposed to black mold and asbestos more often than white workers
Sara Lee will be rolling out a lot of dough to some of its black employees after a federal lawsuit said they were exposed to racist slurs and graffiti and developed cancer as a result of working in more hazardous environments than their white co-workers.
The corporate bakery, now known as Hillshire Brands, will give $4 million to 74 of its black employees in a settlement announced Monday after they complained they were subjected to “environmental racism.”
“We’re extremely pleased that our clients will receive some relief after everything they went through. Many of our clients worked for Sara Lee for decades,” said attorney Sara Kane, whose New York firm Valli Kane & Vagnini represented the clients in the lawsuit.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission launched a two-year investigation into the Texas facility, which shuttered in 2011 and found that white supervisors “berated” black factory workers with racial slurs like the n-word and that the walls of the factory were filled with vulgar racial graffiti including “KKK” and apes hanging from nooses, the complaint alleges.
Black employees also accused the factory’s supervisors of assigning them to positions where they developed cancer from asbestos and black mold exposure more often than their white co-workers, who were routinely promoted out of those jobs, according to the lawsuit.
The employees said their requests to be moved out of the toxic environments were not acknowledged by their supervisors.
DAVID PAUL MORRIS/BLOOMBERG
The federal lawsuit alleges that black employees were exposed to asbestors and black mold more often than their white co-workers.
“Sara Lee’s management staff would either ignore the questions entirely or deny that the environment was hazardous,” according to the lawsuit.
Sara Lee, which was absorbed by Hillshire Brands and is a subsidiary of Tyson Foods, did not claim liability for the claims in the settlement.
“While we don’t agree with all of the allegations in this case, we oppose any unlawful discrimination in the workplace and believe it makes sense to resolve this matter,” said Tyson Foods spokesman Worth Sparkman in a statement.“We’re committed to treating our team members with dignity and respect and have a policy against harassment and discrimination.”
Hillshire Brands agreed to report future complaints of racial discrimination to the EEOC and and will take “preventative approaches” to workplace harassment under the terms of the settlement in addition to the prompt removal of offensive graffiti in their facilities.
– Staff Writer Laura Bult, New York Daily News
Read original article from New York Daily News
EEOC: $4M settlement sends message that work discrimination won’t be tolerated
Federal attorneys with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said Tuesday that a $4 million settlement for former workers at the now closed Sara Lee factory in Paris, Texas, sends a message to employers that workplace discrimination and dangerous work environments won’t be tolerated.
Black employees suffered intimidation, racial taunts including being called the ‘N’ word, and racist graffiti on the walls of bathrooms and the locker room at the plant in Paris, Suzanne Anderson, supervisory trial attorney with the EEOC, said at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Dallas. In addition, the former bakery employees were required to work in hazardous areas of the plant, exposing them to toxic materials, she said.
Hillshire Brands Co., which formerly owned Sara Lee, will pay a total of $4 million to a group of 74 African American former employees and take other steps to settle the lawsuit.
Human resources professionals and employment lawyers especially should take note of the settlement, Jay Ellwanger, an Austin attorney for workers who had filed a civil suit before the EEOC filed its case, told me in an interview before the news conference.
The Paris plant was a Sara Lee factory for decades, Ellwanger said. Hillshire Brands, which owned the Sara Lee brand, sold the brand to Bimbo Bakeries, but closed the Paris plant instead of selling it to Sara Lee. So Bimbo Bakeries currently owns Sara Lee, but Hillshire Brands owns the liabilities from the plant, and Tyson Foods has since acquired Hillshire Brands, Ellwanger said.
He said he does not know whether the discrimination allegations and pending litigation factored into the decision to sell the Paris plant.
“We certainly had our suspicions,” Ellwanger said. “The timing was suspect.”
The 74 former Sara Lee employees received varying amounts, and they have all received their checks from the company, Anderson told me in an interview after the conference
The two-year consent decree settling the case provides for an injunction under which Hillshire will implement anti-discrimination or harassment programs and conduct training to prevent and promptly address graffiti in other Texas plants it owns.
Sara Wyn Kane, a New York attorney who represented the clients in the lawsuit, said the takeaway for employers is that it’s never acceptable to treat people differently based on the color of their skin, nor is it acceptable to allow others to do so. She said that job site discrimination and harassment continues to be a significant problem at large and small companies nationwide.
“As an employer, you have an obligation to make sure that people can come to work free of discrimination, and free of fearing for their health and safety,” Kane said. “If you see that or learn about it, you need to stop it as an employer. You can’t sit back and hope it goes away or think that it’s OK.”
The settlement is the largest in the history of the EEOC in Dallas involving a hostile work environment.
-Staff Writer Bill Heathcock, Dallas Business Journal
NBC, Sony Face OT Suit Over PA Workers On 'The Blacklist'
Law360, Los Angeles (September 16, 2015, 10:13 PM ET) — Employees tasked with defending parking spaces for the production vehicles of the NBCUniversal show “The Blacklist” accused the companies who make the show, including Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc., of cheating them out of overtime pay and altering their paychecks, according to a New York federal suit entered Wednesday.
Plaintiffs Corey Leach and Anthony Jacob filed the class and collective action alleging Fair Labor Standards Act violations on behalf of parking production assistants, who can spend several consecutive days at a time holding spaces for production trucks in New York City without breaks, according to the suit.
The PAs worked four to six days a week, for 50-90 hours a week or more, holding parking spaces and sets for the James Spader-helmed TV show, according to the suit. But the production companies paid them a flat rate of about $160 per shift that disguised the amount of overtime the workers were owed under federal law, the workers said.
“Although it is an ‘industry custom’ to pay television and production employees by a flat shift pay, defendants’ practice of paying a flat-shift did not accurately compensate plaintiffs for their overtime hours as required by FLSA and New York Labor Law,” Leach said in his suit.
Leach is also the lead plaintiff in a suit entered Friday in the same court, this time against Warner Brothers Inc., Outerbanks Entertainment and the other production companies that make “The Following,” starring Kevin Bacon.
That suit details similar allegations about the work of a parking production assistant and how it conflicts with industry-standard flat rate pay, court records show. Both suits were signed Friday, but the suit against “The Blacklist” wasn’t entered until Wednesday, according to the dockets.
It’s not Leach’s first time in the plaintiff’s seat in an FLSA collective action over the issue of parking PA pay, court records show.
In 2011, Leach lodged a wage-and-hour class action accusing Warner Bros., NBC, HBO Films, and other studios and production companies of failing to pay overtime.
In that suit, he said that during his employment on film and TV sets from 2007 to 2011, he was paid a fixed amount per 12-hour shift and never received overtime pay, despite sometimes working as much as 90 to 100 hours a week.
His work then included stints on the sets for the movies “Friends With Benefits,” “Lipstick Jungle” and “The Wackness,” as well as HBO series “The Sopranos,” according to his complaint.
That suit was dismissed in 2012.
James Vagnini of Valli Kane & Vagnini, representing the plaintiffs, told Law360 on Wednesday that the practice of hiring workers to hold parking spaces and sets is unique to New York. In other cities, police help defend the spaces needed for running a production, but in New York, the task is left to people like Leach who have to maintain round-the-clock surveillance on an area to keep it film-ready.
“Here you are working on multi-million dollar productions and you’ve got groups of people who are scraping by,” Vagnini said. “These are guys that work for a lot of locations.”
Vagnini also helmed the 2011 suit.
“Years later, these companies just can’t get it right,” he said.
Representatives for the defendants didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment late Wednesday.
Leach and Jacob are represented by Robert John Valli and James Vagnini of Valli Kane & Vagnini LLP.
Counsel information for the defendants couldn’t be immediately determined.
The cases are Corey Leach et al. v. NBCUniversal Television Group et al., case number 1:15-cv-07206, and Corey Leach et al. v. Warner Brothers Inc., case number 1:15-cv-07208, each in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
— Additional reporting by Stewart Bishop. Editing by Ben Guilfoy.
Original Article from: Law 360
NY Nursing Home To Pay $2.2M To End Medicaid Fraud Suit
Law360, Washington (August 19, 2014, 2:43 PM ET) — Nursing home owner Ralex Services Inc. has agreed to pay $2.2 million to settle a whistleblower suit accusing it of bilking New York’s Medicaid program by overstating the level of care its residents needed, according to filings made in federal court Monday.
The settlement, which ends False Claims Act allegations against Ralex, the operator of New Rochelle, New York-based Glen Island Center for Nursing and Rehabilitation and its president and owner Leah Friedman, will be split between New York and the federal government, with the state taking the lion’s share — a little over $1.3 million, plus interest, cost and attorneys’ fees.
This figure could also be bolstered if Ralex succeeds in a pending suit against the state regarding Medicaid reimbursement rates, with a portion of any judgment from that suit to be added to the deal as a related “windfall” payment, according to the settlement agreement. Ralex has also agreed to enter into a corporate integrity agreement with the New York State Office of the Medicaid Inspector General to ensure it complies with state Medicaid rules in the future, if deemed necessary by the IG.
Counsel for relator Carolyn Hinestroza, Sara Wyn Kane of Valli Kane & Vagnini LLP, said Tuesday that the firm was pleased to see the issue resolved, after working with the government to help “pursue justice” in the case.
“We commend Ms. Hinestroza on her bravery and willingness to come forward,” Kane said. “She observed what she believed to be fraud against the state and federal governments and took affirmative action to address it.”
Gabriel Nugent of Hiscock & Barclay LLP, representing the defendants, noted Tuesday that the settlement had resolved claims involving a former employee of Glen Island and said his clients were glad to conclude the case.
Regardless of the settlement, Glen Island was a “five-star” nursing home providing excellent service, Nugent said, with the alleged conduct bearing “no relation to the quality of resident care.”
According to a complaint-in-intervention and other court documents filed Monday, Ralex and Friedman had between at least April 2002 and October 2006 submitted bogus Patient Review Instrument, or PRI, data to New York’s Medicaid program falsely inflating the degree of care that Glen Island’s residents required, with PRI forms signed off on by Friedman and former administrator Eufemia Fe Salomon-Flores.
This PRI data is used as one of several components in determining the facility’s Medicaid reimbursement rate, and although bogus data was only submitted through 2006, claims continued to be paid out at inflated rates through March 2009, resulting in Glen Island receiving a higher rate than needed for the care of its residents across more than 62,000 claims, the complaint claimed.
Also, from 2007 onwards, the defendants attempted to cover up the scheme by adding false entries and forged signatures to residents’ medical records, including during a two-week “records tampering party” at the company’s corporate offices in February and March 2007, according to the suit.
The suit was first filed in February 2010 by Hinestroza, a former nurse at Glen Island, alleging she had discovered Salomon-Flores had been falsifying PRI data and forging staff signatures after refusing to sign off on PRI forms prepared by the administrator, and that she was terminated in retaliation for complaining about the issue to management and reporting the fraud to state officials. The case was unsealed in December, after both the state and federal governments partially intervened.
Hinestroza, as the relator in the case, will receive a 19 percent cut — about $250,000 — of the state’s share, in addition to her costs and attorneys’ fees to be paid by Ralex, according to settlement documents. It was not immediately clear what, if any, portion of the federal government’s share that she will receive.
Salomon-Flores — along with two nurses at the facility who aided in record tampering — has already pled guilty in state court to a grand larceny charge related to the fraud, in September 2011. Among other conditions, she agreed to pay $2.2 million in restitution to New York, which will be partially offset by the state portion of the settlement announced Monday, the deal says.
The federal government is represented by Loretta E. Lynch and Erin E. Argo of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York.
New York is represented by Eric T. Schneiderman and Jill D. Brenner of the New York Attorney General’s Office.
Hinestroza is represented by Sara Wyn Kane of Valli Kane & Vagnini LLP.
The Ralex defendants are represented by Gabriel M. Nugent of Hiscock & Barclay LLP.
The case is U.S. and State of New York ex rel. Hinestroza v. Ralex Services Inc. et al., case number 1:10-cv-00822, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
-Editing by Mark Lebetkin.
Original Article from: Law 360
Community Leaders Rally for Increased Voter Access at the Polls
Press Release — Assemblyman David Weprin, Senator Toby Ann Stavisky, and several South Asian community leaders held a press conference outside the Queens Board of Elections advocating for passage of their bill A9956/S7402. This bill directs the Queens county board of elections to provide written language assistance in Bengali, Punjabi, and Hindi, in addition to the languages currently available. If passed, this will include ballots, signs, voter mailings, employee and volunteer training material and information on the board’s website.
“Queens’ strength is its diversity,” said Senator Stavisky, who represents a multiethnic district centered in Flushing. “We must do all that we can to facilitate the involvement of new immigrants in government, and that is why Assemblyman Weprin and I have introduced this bill.”
“Since Asian-Indians in Queens County are newly covered under the Language Assistance Provisions of Sec. 203 of the federal Voting Rights Act, this bill will only further the intention of the Department of Justice’s recommendations that written materials be provided to Asian Indian voters in Queens County,” said Assemblyman David Weprin. “By providing written language materials in these three most widely spoken Asian Indian languages we are ensuring that voters have the resources they need when they go to polls. This is one critical step towards increasing voter turnout at the polls and improving voter access.”
“Having ballots and voting materials in Bengali, Punjabi and Hindi will help more residents of Queens County exercise their right to vote,” said John Albert, Board Chair of Taking Our Seat. “These Americans want to have their voices heard at the polls and want to take on the responsibilities that come with their citizenship. This bill tells them that they are welcome at the polls and that America’s democracy is built on the ability of every eligible person to effectively cast their ballot.”
“This bill recognizes that we as a democracy should be empowering citizens to vote and broadening ways in which all Americans can participate in our political process. That is the core value of the Voting Rights Act,” added Tito Sinha, Director of the South Asian Bar Association of New York. “South Asian Americans are one of many dynamic and vibrant communities who make up Queens and this great City, and this bill will help the South Asian community to participate more meaningfully in our democracy.”
Jerry Vattamala, a staff attorney at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, echoed that sentiment, saying, “Asian Americans are the fastest growing racial group in New York City and are naturalizing and registering to vote in increasing numbers. AALDEF has worked closely with community based organizations and the Board of Elections to ensure that South Asian Americans receive the language assistance they need on election day. AALDEF is pleased that Bengali language assistance is required in Queens under Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act and supports efforts to enfranchise thousands more registered South Asian citizens who require Punjabi and Hindi language assistance to participate in the political process.”
“This Bill will encourage and motivate South Asians to be more active participants in the American political process. As an American, there is nothing more satisfying and fulfilling than casting your vote on election day and knowing that your voice is heard and it makes a big difference. The passage of this bill will enable a large number of South Asians to participate in our vibrant and dynamic democracy for the first time in their lives,” said Dr. Taj Rajkumar, Professor and District Leader.
“This bill will help the South Asian American Community to more actively participate in the electoral process.. I appreciate Assemblyman David Weprin’s and Senator Stavisky’s commitment to standing with the South Asian American community by introducing this language access bill in the NYS Assembly,” said South Asian Community Leader and Community Board # 7 member Dilip Chauhan.
“The release of 2010 Census data demonstrates the tremendous growth of South Asian Americans and Indo Caribbeans in New York City and Queens County. From 2000 to 2010, the South Asian population in New York City more than doubled and existing demographic data also indicates that Queens County is home to the largest South Asian population of any municipality in the USA, a nation of immigrants,” said Albert Baldeo, Democratic District Leader in the 38th Assembly District. “The Stavisky-Weprin language access bill will ensure that we comply with the mandates of the Voting Rights Act to provide written electoral language assistance to this significant group, while they exercise their most fundamental right to vote.”
Assemblyman Weprin emphasized the work that has already been done, continuing, “while we applaud the Board of Elections for providing written language assistance in Bengali and agreeing to provide translators for individuals that need them on election day, Senator Stavisky and I agree that having written materials in advance of the election helps to provide critical information to voters about candidates, helps them to know where to vote and improves access at the polls.”
“The growing South Asian community in Queens is highly focused on civic engagement. We must pass this bill, to make life easier for people who are simply trying to exercise their rights,” concluded Senator Stavisky.