The Northern District of Illinois issued a decision conditionally certifying a nationwide FLSA class action consisting of medical transcriptionists in Cosentino v. Transcend Services, Inc., Case No. 1:12-cv-03627 (N.D. Ill. March 19, 2013). (See attached). There is a now pending 90 day opt-in period for class members to join the lawsuit by executing an Opt-in Consent Form. (See attached). Notice of this lawsuit has been sent to potential class members by U.S. Mail. (See attached).
In this collective action brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), Plaintiffs are medical transcriptionists, or Medical Language Specialists ("MLS"), who work from home transcribing and editing medical reports. Plaintiffs transcribe and edit downloaded medical reports. Plaintiffs allege Transcend instituted a uniform policy and practice which failed to compensate them for all work performed, and thereby did not guarantee them minimum wage or overtime compensation.
The court conditionally determined that MLSs were similarly situated because 1) Plaintiffs alleged they were subject to similar production-based compensation structure; 2) Plaintiffs were all held to uniform performance, quality, and accuracy standards; 3) Plaintiffs were subject to uniform production quotas; 4) Plaintiffs were required to keep their time recorded on a similar program; 5) Plaintiffs were instructed to enter "hands on keyboard" time as their work time, which excluded preparation or research time from consideration as work time; 6) Plaintiffs were subject to the uniform policy of "flexing" their work time and either working or remaining available to work at times during which they were not scheduled in order to meet their production quotas.
Defendant Transcend argued that its policies and practices did not violate the FLSA, and that a collective action was not appropriate due to the inherent difficulty of computing damages .
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