20.  Defendants operate Clear Lake Regional Medical Center located at 500 W.  Medical Center Blvd., Webster, TX 77598 (the “Hospital”). The Hospital has provided  comprehensive healthcare to the Bay Area Houston region for approximately forty-five years. It  employs approximately 2,000 staff members and approximately 900 physicians in multiple  specialties, including but not limited to breast health, cancer care, cardiology, diabetes  management, emergency services, medical imaging, obstetric and gynecological services,  pediatrics, rehabilitation services, neuroscience and neurology, robotic and conventional surgery,  and wound treatment.   21.  Plaintiff Brandie Bowman is a registered nurse who worked for Defendants at the  Hospital from approximately August 2014 until approximately March 2015. On or about August  2014, she agreed to provide her services as a registered nurse in the Hospital’s Oncology  Department in exchange for Defendants’ agreement to compensate her at a specified hourly rate  for each of her hours worked. On information and belief, the agreed hourly rate was  approximately $27.50 per hour.   22.  Plaintiff and class members were regularly scheduled to work three twelve-hour  shifts per week at the Hospital. However, class members had the option to pick up additional  shifts, and frequently did so. In Plaintiff’s case, she picked up two additional twelve-hour shifts  per week in approximately three out of every four weeks worked. Accordingly, Plaintiff worked  approximately 60 hours per week at the Hospital in the majority of the weeks following her  orientation.   23.  Plaintiff alleges that in each and every week of her employment following her  classroom orientation, and as a result of a common policy equally applicable to her and to  8  every member of the class, Defendants (a) failed to pay her the agreed hourly rate for some of  her work performed in those weeks in which she worked forty (40) or fewer hours; and (b) failed  to pay her at the time-and-one-half overtime rate required by federal law for some of her work  performed in those weeks in which she worked more than forty (40) hours in a week.  Specifically, she was not compensated at any rate whatsoever for 30 minutes of each of her  twelve-hour shifts worked.   Off-the-clock work: Uncompensated work during meal breaks.   24.  The Hospital generated its payroll documentation for Plaintiff and class members  by using eStub software. The hours to be paid were tracked by timekeeping software which, on  information and belief, was Kronos timekeeping software. The timekeeping software was  configured to deduct 30 minutes of time from each twelve-hour shift worked by the Hospital’s  direct patient care nurses. Each pay period, the amount of time tracked by the Kronos software,  after deduction of 30 minutes per worked shift, was uploaded for processing into the eStub  payroll processing software.   25.  All of the Hospital’s hourly-paid direct patient care nurses are and were subject to  Defendants’ policy to automatically deduct 30 minutes per shift from the recorded time worked.   26.  Plaintiff anticipates that Defendants may attempt to argue that the 30-minute  deductions from each shift worked were warranted so as to account for uninterrupted 30-minute  lunch breaks during which no work was performed and for which no compensation is owed. In  point of fact, however, Plaintiff and her nurse colleagues routinely worked through their lunch  breaks, and even when they did manage to spend a few minutes eating, that time was regularly  interrupted by other nurses on duty, nurse managers, doctors, patients’ families, and other  Hospital staff.   9   27.  Defendants are and were familiar with the demands of the health care industry in  general and of providing medical services at the Hospital in specific, and they deliberately chose  to keep their labor costs down by staffing an insufficient number of personnel per shift. Rather  than hiring and staffing a sufficient number of nurses per shift to allow the nurses to take full,  uninterrupted 30-minute meal breaks, Defendants required and permitted these overworked  nurses to work during their meal breaks for the benefit of the Hospital. Defendants knew and  expected that Plaintiff and class members would work through their unpaid “meal breaks,” and  this was in fact a daily occurrence at Hospital. Defendants’ supervisors and management  routinely interrupted the meal breaks of Plaintiff and class members and made work demands  upon them. Defendants’ supervisors and management were actively involved in scheduling the  shifts worked by Plaintiffs and the class, and they had actual knowledge that their staffing and  work policies were causing Plaintiff and class members to work through meal breaks to the  predominant benefit of the Hospital.    28.  Plaintiff and class members were not only required to remain at the Hospital  during their shifts, including during the supposed “meal breaks,” they were expected to remain  on their assigned floors so as to be able to respond to patient care needs at all times. Plaintiff and  class members were also required to carry cell phones issued by the Hospital and were required  to respond to calls on those telephones at all times, including during any supposed “meal break.”  In short, far from ensuring that Plaintiff and class members were completely relieved of work  duties during the supposed “meal breaks,” Defendants expected and required Plaintiff and class  members to attend to work demands throughout their shifts, including during any “meal break.”   29.  In that connection, Plaintiff and class members were expected to complete orders  on assigned patients, to answer calls, to respond to medical emergencies (“codes”), to advise  10  other staff on patient care and status issues, to answer questions from hospital staff or family  members, and in general to respond immediately to work demands during “meal breaks.”   30.  Defendants knew and/or had reason to know that Plaintiff and class members  performed work during their unpaid “meal breaks,” as evidenced by Defendants requiring  Plaintiff and class members to remain at the Hospital and on their assigned floors during their  shifts so as to be available to respond to work demands, and by the fact that Defendants provided  Plaintiff and other class members with cell phones and expected them to respond to calls for  information or assistance at any time during the shift, including during meal breaks. Moreover,  Plaintiff and class members performed work for Defendants during the unpaid meal breaks in  plain sight of Defendants’ management, quite often at Defendants’ management’s specific  request.   31.  Despite Defendants’ actual knowledge that Plaintiff and other class members  worked during supposed “meal breaks,” Defendants willfully failed to compensate Plaintiff and  class members for such work, electing instead to accept the benefits of the class members’ work  without compensating them for such work.    32.  Given that Defendants’ supervisors and managers knew from direct observation  and from their general knowledge of the Hospital’s operations that Plaintiff and class members  (a) regularly worked through the deducted meal break time without compensation; and (b)  regularly accumulated overtime hours even after deduction of the uncompensated 30 minutes per  shift (as evidenced by the fact that the Hospital paid for overtime that still appeared in the  timekeeping records even after deduction of the 30 minutes per shift), Defendants had both  actual and constructive knowledge that Plaintiff and class members were not being compensated  for meal periods worked at any rate whatsoever, much less at the agreed hourly rate or at the  federally mandated time-and-one-half rate required for overtime.  11  Calculation of damages.   33.  Evidence reflecting the number of uncompensated meal break hours worked by  each class member, as well as their applicable regular and overtime rate, is in the possession of  Defendants. Actual damages can be calculated easily once Defendants have produced complete  payroll records for the class. The absence of a bona fide meal break makes all meal break time  compensable, and all that remains is to establish the number of shifts worked by class members  in the weeks in which they worked more than 40 hours, and the number of shifts worked in  which they worked fewer than 40 hours. Each shift worked will entitle class members to 30  minutes of pay at either their usual hourly rate or at their time-and-one-half rate, depending upon  whether the week in question is one in which forty or fewer hours were worked, or one in which  forty or more hours were worked. The information needed to calculate damages―specifically  the dates of the shifts worked, the total number of hours worked per week, and the base hourly  rate of pay for each worker―exists right now in Defendants’ timekeeping and payroll databases.  The damage calculation itself will be a straightforward accounting process.   VI.  34.  Plaintiff incorporates all allegations contained in the foregoing paragraphs.   35.  Pursuant to 29 U.S.C. § 216(b), Plaintiff seeks to prosecute her FLSA claims as a  collective action on behalf of the members of the putative class.   36.  The action is filed on behalf of all of Defendants’ hourly-paid direct patient care  nurses who worked at the Hospital during the three years preceding the filing of this action  through entry of judgment in this case, whose overtime pay was docked pursuant to an automatic  meal break deduction policy notwithstanding the fact that the nurses performed compensable  work during the supposed meal break periods (the “FLSA Class”).  12   37.  This FLSA Class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable.   Although the precise number of such persons is currently unknown to Plaintiff, and although the  data which would identify the size of the FLSA Class is within the sole control of Defendants,  upon information and belief there are hundreds of nurses encompassed by the class, most of  whom would not be likely to file individual suits because they lack adequate financial resources,  access to attorneys or knowledge of their claims.   38.  Plaintiff will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the FLSA Class  members and has retained counsel experienced and competent in the field of wage and hour law  and class action litigation. Plaintiff has no interest that is contrary to or in conflict with the  interests of the members of the FLSA Class.   39.  A collective action is superior to individual adjudication of the claims at issue in  this controversy, since the claims are substantially similar and since joinder of all members is  impracticable. Furthermore, inasmuch as the damages suffered by individual members of the  class may be relatively small, the expense and burden of individual litigation make it virtually  impossible for the members of the class to seek redress individually for the wrongs done to them.   Management of the suit as a collective action will serve judicial economy.   40.  Questions of law and fact common to the FLSA Class members predominate over  questions that may affect only individuals because Defendants have acted on grounds generally  applicable to all FLSA Class members. Among the common questions of law and fact common  to Plaintiff and other collective action class members are:  a.  whether Defendants employed class members in the manner that “employment” is  understood and defined by the FLSA;  b.  whether Plaintiff and the FLSA Class members were expected to and/or required  to work during unpaid meal breaks, and in fact did so;  13  c.  Whether Defendants’ control of the conditions of the “meal break” was for the  predominant benefit of the Hospital and whether it made such time compensable  as a matter of law;  d.  whether Defendants failed to pay Plaintiff and the FLSA Class members overtime  compensation for some of their hours worked in excess of forty hours per  workweek in violation of the FLSA, as a result of Defendants’ automatic  deduction of, and failure to pay for, 30-minute meal break periods in each shift  worked in weeks in which overtime hours were otherwise worked;  e.  whether Defendants’ violations of the FLSA were willful as that term is  understood in the context of the FLSA; and  f.  whether Defendants are liable for damages claimed hereunder, including but not  limited to unpaid overtime wages, liquidated damages, attorneys’ fees and costs.   41.  Plaintiff knows of no difficulty that would be encountered in the management of  this litigation that would preclude its maintenance as a collective action.   42.  The FLSA 216(b) collective action class may be defined as:  Nurses employed at Clear Lake Regional Medical Center to provide direct  patient care at any time during the three years before this Complaint was  filed up to the present who, as a result of Defendants’ practice of  automatically deducting thirty (30) minutes from each shift worked and not  paying for same, did not receive all of the overtime pay to which they were  entitled under the FLSA in the weeks of their employment in which said  nurses worked more than forty (40) hours per week.   43.  Plaintiff incorporates all allegations contained in the foregoing paragraphs.   44.  Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(a), (b)(2) and (b)(3) and 28 U.S.C. § 1367, Plaintiff  seeks to prosecute her Texas state claims for breach of contract, quantum meruit and unjust  enrichment as a class action on behalf of all hourly-paid direct patient care nurses who worked at  the Hospital at any time during the four years preceding the filing of this action through entry of  judgment whose pay has been docked by application of an automatic meal break deduction to  their shifts worked in the weeks in which they did not work overtime (the “Rule 23 Class”).  14   45.  This Rule 23 Class is so numerous that joinder of all members is impracticable.   Although the precise number of such persons is currently unknown to Plaintiff, and although the  data which would identify the size of the Rule 23 Class is within the sole control of Defendants,  upon information and belief there are hundreds of nurses encompassed by the class, most of  whom would not be likely to file individual suits because they lack adequate financial resources,  access to attorneys or knowledge of their claims.   46.  Plaintiff will fairly and adequately protect the interests of the Rule 23 Class  Members and has retained counsel experienced and competent in the field of contract,  compensation, and class action litigation.  Plaintiff has no interest that is contrary to or in conflict  with the interests of the members of the Rule 23 Class.   47.  A class action is superior to individual adjudication of the claims at issue in this  controversy, since the claims are substantially similar and since joinder of all members is  impracticable. Furthermore, inasmuch as the damages suffered by individual members of the  Rule 23 Class may be relatively small, the expense and burden of individual litigation make it  virtually impossible for the members of the class to individually seek redress for the wrongs  done to them. Management of this suit as a class action will serve judicial economy.   48.  Questions of law and fact common to the Rule 23 Class predominate over  questions that may affect only individuals because the Hospital has acted on grounds generally  applicable to all class members. Among the common questions of law and fact common to  Plaintiff and other members of the Rule 23 Class are:  a.  whether agreements existed pursuant to which Defendants were to pay an hourly  wage to Plaintiff and to members of the class for each hour of their work;  b.  whether Defendants failed to pay Plaintiff and members of the class for all hours  worked as a result of its automatic deduction of a 30-minute meal period per shift,  notwithstanding the fact that Plaintiff and class members regularly performed  compensable work during such meal breaks;  15  c.  whether Defendants engaged in a continuing policy, pattern or practice of failing  to pay Plaintiff and the class members for all hours worked;  d.  whether Defendants breached and continue to breach the employment agreements  between it and the class members;  e.  whether Defendants are liable for damages claimed hereunder, including but not  limited to unpaid meal break time worked, attorneys’ fees and costs.   49.  Plaintiff’s claims are typical of the claims of the Rule 23 Class. Plaintiff, like all  other class members, was subject to the Hospital’s policy and practice of automatically deducting  30 minutes of pay per shift worked even though Plaintiff performed compensable work  throughout her shift. Plaintiff and each class member has been damaged and is entitled to  recovery by reason of the Hospital’s policies and practices. Class action treatment will allow  class members to litigate their claims in a manner that is fair to all parties involved, free of fear  of retaliation, and efficient for those parties and for the judicial system.   50.  The Rule 23 Class members are defined as:  Nurses employed at Clear Lake Regional Medical Center to provide  direct patient care at any time during the four years before this  Complaint was filed up to the present who, as a result of Defendants’  practice of automatically deducting thirty (30) minutes from each shift  worked and not paying for same, did not receive all of the straight time  pay at their contractual hourly rate to which they were entitled in the  weeks of their employment in which said nurses worked forty (40) or  fewer hours per week. 