Edgeworth Provides Analyses Of Rounding Policies In California Court > Experience > Experience & News > Edgeworth Economics, L.L.C.
An Edgeworth Economics team, led by Dr. Deborah Foster as the testifying economist, was retained by two California hospitals—both part of the AHMC Hospital System—accused of violating California labor law by using a payroll system that automatically rounded employees' hours up or down to the nearest quarter-hour. Both employees and the hospital system asked the Los Angeles Superior Court to rule on the legality of the rounding policies but were denied. AHMC Healthcare then appealed the trial court's refusal to decide the question of law to the Second Appellate District.
whether the employees as a whole benefitted by being paid for minutes or hours they did not work, or the petitioners benefitted by paying for fewer minutes or hours than actually worked.
The Edgeworth analysis showed—among other things—that at one hospital, the overall number of minutes added to employee time by the rounding policy exceeded the number of minutes subtracted, adding 1,378 hours to the employees' total compensable time. At the other hospital, overall the rounding procedure added 3,875 hours to the employees' total compensable time.