Thousands of healthcare employees will receive back pay after wage settlement agreement.
Thousands of current and former North Carolina healthcare workers are set to receive backpay after a wage settlement agreement was reached with Mission Health. The case accused the hospital system of improperly rounding up employee time, failing to fully pay overtime, and automatically deducting meal breaks even when workers continued performing on-the-job duties.
Mission Health, which is owned by HCA Healthcare, agreed to pay more than $1.5 million to resolve the claims in what would become a class action lawsuit. After attorney fees and other costs were accounted for in the settlement money, the remaining funds will total approximately $917,000 and will be distributed among eligible members of the class.
The settlement may apply to more than 18,000 hourly healthcare employees who worked at hospitals and medical facilities connected to the Mission Health network between in the more than four-year span between April 2021 and July 2025. Workers covered under the settlement agreement include non-exempt employees at several western North Carolina healthcare locations.
The lawsuit claimed employees regularly lost pay because of how work hours were recorded. According to court records, workers who clocked in a few minutes early and immediately began working were sometimes paid only from the official start of their shift rather than the actual time worked. Plaintiffs argued that over time, those unpaid minutes added up to lost wages and overtime pay.
The case was first filed in federal court in April 2024. U.S. District Judge Max Cogburn Jr. approved the wage settlement agreement during a brief hearing in Asheville. The decision was reached after mediation talks between both sides in 2025.
Workers claimed in the class action that even when they worked through lunch because they were tending to patient needs and dealing with staffing shortages, 30 minutes were still removed from their daily paychecks. Employees argued that busy hospital conditions often prevented uninterrupted breaks, especially in patient care positions where staff members were expected to remain available during high-demand periods.
Respiratory therapist Sharon McRee served as the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. McRee worked at Mission Hospital for about two decades before leaving in 2022. Court documents described how her regular shift officially started at 6:30 a.m., though she often clocked in several minutes earlier and immediately began caring for patients. Despite starting work before her scheduled time, those extra minutes were allegedly not fully counted toward her pay.
Federal labor rules allow employers to round employee time in certain situations. However, the law also states that rounding practices cannot consistently favor employers or prevent workers from receiving proper compensation for hours actually worked. The lawsuit argued that the system used by the hospitals resulted in workers losing earned wages over long periods of time.
Lawyers representing employees estimated the total unpaid wages may have reached nearly $2.9 million. The final settlement amount recovers slightly more than half of that estimate. Attorneys for the workers said the agreement still represents an important result for the employees who spent years working long hours during demanding conditions. According to court filings, about 99 percent of class members chose to remain part of the agreement rather than opt out. Mission Health and HCA Healthcare did not publicly respond to requests for comment following the settlement approval.
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Mission Health settles lawsuit over unpaid wages for $1.5 million
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