Class Action Filed Against Grandison Management, Rehab Synergy Over Allegedly Unpaid Wages, Unconscionable Work Contracts [DISMISSED]

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A proposed class and collective action has been filed in New York against Grandison Management, Inc., Rehab Synergy PT, P.C. and one individual over the alleged breach of a physical therapist’s employment contract. 

The plaintiff is an individual who was recruited in the Philippines to work for the defendants under what the lawsuit says was a three-year indentured servitude contract. The first contract the plaintiff was made to sign, according to the lawsuit, stipulated that the woman would be required to pay or work off a $30,000 indenture “before she would be allowed to stop working for the defendants.” This arrangement also supposedly included non-compete provisions to prevent the woman from practicing as a physical therapist for anyone besides the defendants. The plaintiff’s second contract, which she signed in July 2017, the suit says, called for the woman to “pay $200.00 for every 40 hours left in the Work Term.”

The lawsuit decries the defendants for allegedly pressuring the plaintiff—in the country on an H-1B non-immigrant visa—to work as a physical therapist in a chiropractor’s office. During the plaintiff’s time working for the defendants, according to the complaint, the woman provided services to “an excessive number of patients” for which billing records do not accurately reflect the number of hours she worked either on or off the clock.

“On high-volume days, [the defendants] frequently required [the plaintiff] to provide physical therapy services and treatment to between 35 and 4l patients in an eight-hour day,” the suit says, claiming the plaintiff had less than 20 minutes to provide supposedly “sub-standard” services to each patient on such days.

When the plaintiff voiced her concerns about supposed risks to patients’ health and safety and the defendants’ allegedly false billing practices, the companies reportedly claimed that “it was normal for a physical therapist to treat as many as 40 patients in a day.”  The lawsuit then alleges Grandison threatened the plaintiff with “serious harm and abusive legal actions” should she try to stop working for the defendants. From the complaint:

“The threats of serious harm caused [the plaintiff] to continue working for the Defendants, even though they continued to require her to treat an excessive number of patients, complete false billing records used to bill private and government health insurance programs, and did not pay her for all the hours she worked. These threats were part of a policy and practice that the Defendants pursued with respect to all foreign healthcare professionals who signed Grandison Management's standard employment contracts.”