WILLIAMSPORT \u2014 A federal judge has been asked to give preliminary approval to two settlements totaling $28.5 million to resolve a lawsuit over an alleged secret agreement between two central Pennsylvania healthcare providers not to poach each other\u2019s employees.<\/p>\n
If approved by U.S. Middle District Judge Matthew W. Brann, approximately 12,000 healthcare workers would share in $19 million to be paid by Geisinger and $9.5 million to be paid by the former Evangelical Community Hospital near Lewisburg.<\/p>\n
Evangelical was an independent hospital at the time. It became part of York-based WellSpan Health<\/a> in July 2024.<\/p>\n The settlements would cover those employed by the two healthcare systems in Union, Snyder, Northumberland, Montour, Lycoming, and Columbia counties from Jan. 1, 2014, through Aug. 5, 2020.<\/p>\n Each employee is guaranteed a minimum payment of $250, with the average amount estimated at $1,500, a court document filed Friday states.<\/p>\n Attorney fees not to exceed $3.5 million will be sought from the settlement fund. Taxes would be deducted from the payments to employees.<\/p>\n Nichole Leib and Kevin Brokenshire, who were registered nurses then and the lead plaintiffs, would receive $10,000 each for their work in what was described as 4\u00bd years of hard-fought, expensive litigation.<\/p>\n Board members and administrative personnel of the two healthcare organizations are not eligible for any payment, the agreements state.<\/p>\n The parties agree that the settlements provide \u201cfor substantial, timely compensation\u201d to those harmed by the alleged no-poach agreement.<\/p>\n Neither Geisinger nor Evangelical concedes any liability in reaching the settlements. They had denied the secret agreement allegations.<\/p>\n The antitrust suit <\/a>claimed wages were artificially suppressed by Geisinger and Evangelical, and alleged that they secretly agreed to restrict the solicitation of the others\u2019 employees. <\/p>\n Brann still will have to certify the litigation as a class action and approve the settlement notice to be sent to members that would give the option not to participate.<\/p>\n A court hearing would be held before the judge could give final approval.<\/p>\n He has also been asked to order Geisinger to provide Social Security numbers for its employees, as Evangelical has already done.<\/p>\n If Geisinger refuses, individual employees would be required to file a tax form with the Internal Revenue Service as a condition of payment. <\/p>\n The suit, in which Diane Weigley, a nurse, and Jessica Sauer, a patient access representative, were also plaintiffs, claimed the alleged secret \u201cno-poach\u201d agreement reduced job mobility and enabled the two health systems to pay employees less.<\/p>\n The agreement stopped only when the federal government in 2020 filed an antitrust suit to prevent Geisinger from becoming a 30 percent owner of Evangelical, the plaintiffs contended.<\/p>\n That litigation was settled by an agreement<\/a> that capped Geisinger\u2019s stake in the Lewisburg-area hospital at 7.5 percent. <\/p>\n Geisinger became a member of Risant Health<\/a> on March 31, 2024, but continues to operate under its own name.<\/p>\n If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement<\/a> and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and\/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WILLIAMSPORT \u2014 A federal judge has been asked to give preliminary approval to two settlements totaling $28.5 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[103,397,396,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-64235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-health-care","10":"tag-healthcare","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}