Lubbock County Hospital District - doing business as University Medical Center - has paid $119,175 in back wages to 197 emergency room healthcare employees to settle overtime and recordkeeping violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) found in an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division (WHD).

WHD investigators found that the employer automatically deducted 30 minutes for lunch from the emergency room staff's timesheets regardless of whether they took meal breaks or not. When the employer failed to relieve employees of their job duties, leaving them to work through their breaks, this practice created an overtime violation when this work time remained unpaid. University Medical Center also violated the FLSA's recordkeeping provisions by failing to track break time accurately.