A national nursing home company is seeking dismissal of a class-action lawsuit that alleges the company and its staffing recruiter violated US labor laws in the recruitment of immigrant nurses.
The federal lawsuit claims National Health Corporation, a for-profit, publicly traded long-term care company headquartered in Tennessee; two of its executives; and Infinite Care Partners LLC, a recruiter of international healthcare workers for the company, violated national and state laws including the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the Civil Rights Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act in its recruitment of foreign nurses.
Specifically, the suit alleges the companies recruited hundreds of nurses from the Philippines to work at NHC facilities in the United States, and that the defendants threatened baseless legal action, changes to immigration status and serious financial harm if the nurses stopped working for the defendants.
“They do this in part through illegal contracts that offer no way for the nurses to leave their employment and demand upwards of $40,000 — often more than these nurses’ net annual pay — should the nurses stop working for defendants for any reason,” the complaint alleges.
The lawsuit was originally filed in May and put on an indefinite hold by the court in June to give the parties more time to submit additional filings including motions to dismiss, as reported by Bloomberg Law on Tuesday.
On July 26, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. In the motion, the defendants denied the allegations of human trafficking, forced labor, FLSA and other violations cited in the complaint.
An attorney for National Health Corp. did not immediately respond after a request for comment from McKnight’s Long-Term Care News on Wednesday.
The defense motion noted the contract provisions for repayment related to reimbursement of expenses that the companies incurred related to immigration and travel of the nurses from the Philippines to the United States, which the immigrant nurses agreed to pay back if they did not fulfill the full term of their contract.
“Plaintiffs now want to resign and enjoy all the benefits of working in the United States without paying any costs associated with their new opportunities,” the motion to dismiss said.
The demand for immigrant nurses has been increasing in recent years due to shortages of long-term care workers, especially since the COVID crisis, and as the need for immigrant labor has grown, cases like these have become more common.
At the same time, federal agencies have moved to protect nurses who find themselves locked into contracts they can’t afford to end.
Last November, a registered nurse and a Filipino immigrant, sued the nursing home that she worked in New York, claiming that she was forced to work in untenable conditions with subpar pay and was allegedly threatened to pay $25,000 back to the nursing home if she breached her 3-year contract.
The US Department of Labor has argued these types of contractual arrangements are coercive and may prevent immigrant workers from pursuing legal action for violations of labor law.
However, some industry representatives say that contractual protections are needed for employers and staffing agencies who are often spending thousands of dollars to bring immigrant nurses to the US, while these nurses leave to take other jobs after a short time.
“Without such a commitment, staffing agencies would not be able to dedicate the enormous resources necessary to identify, recruit, train, and facilitate the immigration of nurses,” a spokesman for the American Association of International Healthcare Recruitment, told Bloomberg Law.
