Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, WAGE-HOUR—WORKING TIME—N.D. Ill.: COVID-19 screenings at hospital may be compensable under FLSA, (Feb 21, 2025)

By George Basharis, J.D.

Federal judge rules medical center employee can pursue claims for unpaid wages related to mandatory pre-shift health screenings.

A federal district court in Illinois has ruled that mandatory COVID-19 screenings for hospital workers may be considered “integral and indispensable” to their duties and thus compensable under federal wage laws, drawing an important distinction between healthcare settings and other workplaces that have faced similar claims. The court partially denied the University of Chicago Medical Center’s (UChicago) motion to dismiss, allowing claims under the FLSA and Illinois Minimum Wage Law to proceed while dismissing certain claims under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act related to the COVID-19 screenings (Snyder v. University of Chicago Medical Center, No. 24 C 00985 (N.D. Ill. Feb. 20, 2025)).

COVID screenings. From April 2017 to February 2023, a patient transport specialist worked at UChicago, with responsibilities that included transporting patients throughout the facility. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, federal and state law mandated that UChicago implement preventive measures, including a policy requiring hourly, non-exempt employees to undergo mandatory COVID-19 screenings before starting their shifts. These screenings typically took 20-30 minutes and were conducted off the clock without pay.

The screenings were not optional—employees faced potential discipline or termination for refusing to participate, and UChicago itself would have been prohibited from operating if it failed to implement the required COVID-19 procedures. Additionally, in December 2021, UChicago’s timekeeping and payroll software system was compromised by a cyberattack. Though alternative timekeeping methods were implemented, they proved ineffective, resulting in the medical center employee failing to receive pay for an entire week of work. The employee filed suit seeking compensation under federal and state wage laws for both the unpaid screening time and the wages lost during the system outage. UChicago filed a motion to dismiss the employee’s FLSA and Illinois Minimum Wage Law claims.

Motion to dismiss. UChicago presented several key arguments in its motion to dismiss. First, it contended that pre-shift COVID-19 screenings were not integral and indispensable to the employee’s employment duties because his primary job concerned patient transportation, not health screening. UChicago argued that unlike a nurse whose principal duty is keeping patients healthy, the medical center employee's core responsibilities were focused on transportation services.

UChicago also argued that even if the COVID-19 screenings were found to be integral and indispensable to the medical center employee's work activities, they should not be compensable because they were not “pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer and his business.” Regarding the IWPCA claim, UChicago argued that the employee failed to properly plead the existence of any agreement between the parties that would require compensation for COVID-19 screenings and testing. This argument was successful, with the court agreeing that merely alleging an agreement to pay for all hours worked was insufficient.

UChicago also challenged the sufficiency of the pleadings, arguing that the complaint lacked necessary details about the employee's hourly compensation and specific amounts paid in any given workweek. It further argued that the complaint failed to provide specific start and end dates for the COVID-19 screening requirements.

Healthcare context proves critical. The court denied the hospital’s motion to dismiss. The court found that unlike cases involving warehouse or retail workers, the medical context and direct patient contact involved in the employee’s role made the screenings potentially integral to his primary duties. The employee alleged spending 20-30 minutes per shift on unpaid screenings that were required to protect vulnerable patients.

UChicago cited several cases involving COVID-19 screening compensation claims in other industries, particularly warehouse and retail settings, where courts had found such activities non-compensable. However, the court distinguished these precedents based on the unique healthcare context and vulnerable patient population involved in this case.

“But UChicago Medical Center is not an automobile distribution center. It’s a medical center, and [the plaintiff’s] employment required direct interaction with UChicago patients,” the court noted, distinguishing the case from similar cases involving logistics workers. “This requires special consideration, since UChicago's business concerns serving a population with health vulnerabilities.”

IWPCA claim partially survives. While allowing the FLSA and state minimum wage claims to proceed, the court dismissed IWPCA claims related to uncompensated COVID-19 screenings, finding the employee failed to adequately allege any agreement with the employer to pay for such time. However, the court permitted IWPCA claims to proceed regarding pay issues that arose during a period when the hospital’s timekeeping system was compromised by a cybersecurity incident. The employee alleged going unpaid for an entire week of work during this disruption.

“Unlike the IWPCA claim for the COVID-19 screenings and testing, this allegation concerns payment for work that was not compensated due to administrative shortcomings on UChicago’s part. This is a viable IWPCA claim,” the court explained. The court emphasized that for IWPCA claims, the employees must allege the existence of a specific agreement to compensate for the particular work in question, noting that a general agreement to pay for all hours worked is insufficient under Illinois law.

Legal mandate’s role. The court’s analysis placed significant weight on allegations that federal and state law required UChicago to implement COVID-19 screening procedures. The employee claimed the facility would have been legally barred from operating without such measures in place. This distinguished the case from a 2023 Northern District of Illinois decision involving Amazon warehouse workers, where the court found COVID-19 screenings were not integral to warehouse operations and were not “necessary for the business to function on any given day.” The court rejected UChicago’s argument that even if screenings were integral to work duties, they should not be compensable because they were not pursued primarily for the employer’s benefit. The court found no legal authority supporting this defense under the FLSA.

Pleading standards addressed. The court also addressed various challenges to the sufficiency of the pleadings under federal notice standards. While acknowledging that the complaint “threads the line” of what can be considered compensable under the FLSA, the court found the allegations adequate to proceed.

UChicago’s concerns about lack of specific start and end dates for the COVID-19 screening requirements were dismissed as premature. The court noted that such temporal precision is not required at the pleading stage, and statute of limitations issues are affirmative defenses that need not be preemptively addressed in the complaint.

The case is No. 24 C 00985.

Judge: Kocoras, C.

Attorneys: Michael Louis Fradin (Michael L. Fradin, Attorney at Law) for Kimberly Snyder. Adam James Weiner (Perkins Coie LLP) for The University of Chicago Medical Center.

Companies: University of Chicago Medical Center

Cases: WageHour WorkingTime StateLawClaims Covid19 IllinoisNews