Baltimore's Harbor Hospital's security staff sues for overtime

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jul 25, 2006 by Daniel Ostrovsky

For the past 17 years Baltimore's Harbor Hospital Inc. has failed to compensate its security employees for an extra half hour they were required to work each day, according to eight current and former members of the security staff who have filed lawsuits in Baltimore City Circuit Court.

The number of suits could grow to as many as 30, said attorney C. Stephen Basinger, who is representing the current plaintiffs along with Towson-based lawyer Kelly Bollinger Burke.

The current plaintiffs claim they are owed a combined total of more than 4,800 hours of overtime pay plus costs, under state and federal labor regulations, including the Fair Labor Standards Act, the suits allege.

In addition, each suit seeks $150,000 in compensatory damages and $2 million in punitive damages for civil conspiracy as well as $500,000 in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Policies such as the one allegedly instituted by Harbor Hospital have been put in place, in part, due to the acquisition of the medical field by people who know nothing about it - it is strictly the bottom line, Basinger said. And I think that's what motivated MedStar in this case.

Harbor Hospital has been a member of MedStar Health Inc. or its predecessor, Helix Health, since 1996. MedStar is not named as a defendant in the litigation.

Erika Murray, a spokeswoman for MedStar, declined to comment on the suits yesterday, saying the hospital had not yet been served with the pleadings.

At least since 1989, Harbor Hospital has required its entire security staff to come in half an hour prior to the official beginning of the employees' work shift, Basinger said.

The hospital's security staff works in three shifts, he said, with eight to 10 employees manning each shift.

The official start times of the shifts are 6 a.m., 2 p.m. and 10 p.m., he said.

The early-arrival policy created overlap between the shifts, but the employees didn't have a cup of coffee during the overlap, he said; they went right to work.

Security staff complied with the policy out of fear of losing their jobs, the suits allege.

Basinger said he learned of the policy from hospital security officer Joseph J. Gobrecht, a recent retiree the lawyer had represented in an unrelated matter.

'If I am scheduled to work eight and a half hours a day, how many hours am I to be paid for?' Gobrecht asked Basinger several months ago, according to the lawyer.

Seeing the answer as a slam-dunk - not only should his client have been paid for the extra half hour, it should have counted as overtime - Basinger said he started reaching out to other potential clients.

In February, hospital administrators learned of his efforts and stopped requiring security staff to come in early, Basinger said.

Last year, the Supreme Court held in IBP Inc. v. Alvarez that employees had to be compensated under the Fair Labor Standards Act even for activities such as taking off and putting on protective gear.

In addition to Gobrecht, the plaintiffs are Rebecca Avance, Jermaine M. Blount, Mark Bolden, Gerard K. Fell, Shawn Gross, Michael E. Lang and Rudolph V. Walker.

Current Chief of Security Operations Kurt Campo is also named as a defendant in the suit.