Zoe Berg

A former Yale New Haven Health system employee has filed a lawsuit alleging that the hospital system failed to properly compensate workers, citing automatic deductions for meal breaks and a timekeeping system that allegedly rounds down hours worked.

Ashley Pastor, an off-shift administrative manager at Bridgeport Hospital filed the lawsuit on Feb. 3 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut. The case claims that YNHH’s payroll practices resulted in unpaid wages for employees, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA, and Connecticut state labor laws​. The lawsuit seeks class-action status, which would allow thousands of hospital staff members to join.

“If this case succeeds, it will send a clear message to hospitals and other large employers that they need to ensure their payroll systems are compliant with labor laws,” Seth Lesser, Pastor’s attorney, told the News. “Otherwise, they risk legal action and potentially large financial penalties.”

The lawsuit claims that YNHH’s payroll system led to unpaid wages in two key ways: automatically deducting time for meal breaks even when employees worked through them and rounding time punches in a way that regularly reduced employees’ recorded hours.

YNHH has denied the allegations. 

The lawsuit alleges that YNHH’s payroll system rounds employees’ clock-in and clock-out times to match their scheduled shifts. This means that if an employee clocks in a few minutes early or stays late, those extra minutes may not be reflected in their paycheck.

Lesser explained that while rounding policies were once common when using paper timecards, modern digital systems track exact hours worked, making such policies unnecessary. He argues that because employees are still required to arrive on time for shifts, they often lose small increments of pay due to rounding, which can add up over time.

“In today’s world, we have precise digital timekeeping,” Lesser said. “Employees who are told to start their shift exactly on time often lose small increments of pay, which, over time, add up to millions of dollars across an entity as large as YNHH.”

Beyond time rounding, the lawsuit also claims that YNHH automatically deducts 30-minute meal breaks from employee time, regardless of whether workers actually had an uninterrupted break.

According to the complaint, “Plaintiff Pastor and members of the FLSA Collective and State Law Class regularly worked through, or performed work during, what were supposed to be their meal breaks.”

Lesser argues that this practice results in systematic underpayment, as many employees are routinely required to remain available during their breaks due to high patient loads and staffing shortages.

While Pastor is currently the only named plaintiff, the lawsuit seeks collective action status under the FLSA and class-action status under Connecticut labor law. If granted, other employees who believe they were affected by similar payroll policies may have the opportunity to join the case. Lesser believes that many employees have been impacted but may not have realized it due to the nature of payroll deductions and rounding policies.

“Yale New Haven Health is aware of the recently filed lawsuit. We believe that all of our pay practices are legally compliant, and we intend to vigorously defend ourselves in this matter,” a YNHH spokesperson wrote to the News.

According to Lesser, similar wage disputes in the healthcare sector have resulted in settlements, while others have gone through prolonged litigation. He noted that some hospital systems have opted to resolve cases quickly to avoid legal costs, while others have chosen to fight the claims in court.

“If the hospital decides to fight the case, it could take years,” Lesser said. “But in other cases, hospital systems have chosen to resolve matters quickly rather than prolong legal proceedings.”

If successful, the lawsuit could lead to financial compensation for affected employees and changes in YNHH’s payroll practices.

YNHH has 29,486 employees.