Brown, LLC Obtains Early Judgment in Wage and Hour Suit Against Fast Pace Health

Earlier this year, Brown, LLC filed a collective and class action lawsuit under the Fair Labor Standards Act (the “FLSA”) and state law against Fast Pace Medical Clinic d/b/a Fast Pace Health (Hutchinson v. Fast Pace Health, Case No. 22-CV-00511 (M.D. Tenn.). Fast Pace Health operates more than 170 urgent care facilities in numerous states including Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

The collective and class action complaint alleged, among other things, that Fast Pace automatically shaved off 30 minutes per shift for meal breaks that employees did not always take. This allegedly resulted in hourly-paid healthcare workers not receiving all of the wages they were owed, including overtime premium wages under the FLSA.

To date, two judgments have been entered against the Defendants on behalf of two plaintiffs with more to follow. Some workers who opted into the case received Rule 68 Offers of Judgment from the Defendant Fast Pace, and the Court has now entered judgments against Fast Pace in favor of those plaintiffs. Defendants still technically deny liability, but due to the procedural mechanisms of Rule 68 Offers of Judgment, there now stands two separate judgments against them for complaints that alleged wage and hour violations.

Brown, LLC is a litigation law firm, led by a former FBI Special Agent, that has obtained hundreds of millions of dollars on behalf of plaintiffs, although the firm cautions past results don’t guarantee future success. According to the head of the firm Jason T. Brown, “The Offer of Judgment technique is often used to try and pick off lead plaintiffs in class actions, when a defendant is worried about the case progressing to the class action portion, because there’s often a lot more behind the curtain. I want to encourage individuals have information about the practices of Fast Pace to come forward, but I also want to caution the public that even though we’ve already obtained two judgments against the Defendant, technically right or wrong, they are asserting they haven’t admitted to anything.” The firm Brown, LLC litigates wage and hour collective and class actions, mass torts, other high end litigation, but is most prolific in the qui tam space and was ranked second nationwide as a whistleblower law firm in terms of qui tam filings addressing systemic Medicare fraud and other fraud against the government by Lex Machina when evaluating filings over the last half decade. There are no allegations against Fast Pace in the instant lawsuit about any sort of fraudulent billing practices, the case is exclusively about wage and hour issues.

Brown, LLC has also petitioned the Court to move the case forward as a collective action, which Defendants have not answered yet. Information about the lawsuit and a copy of the judgments can be found at Fast Pace Health (healthcare workers) – Brown, LLC (ifightforyourrights.com).