AMN Healthcare, Kaiser Lose Fight to Arbitrate Nurses’ Wage Case

A group of healthcare services companies can’t force a proposed class of traveling nurses to arbitrate claims that they were forced to accept lower wages or be fired, a California federal court said.

AMN Healthcare Services Inc. placed the nurses under “significant time pressure” to sign its professional services agreement, which is evidence of “oppression,” said Judge Jon S. Tigar with the US District Court for the Northern District of California in his order denying AMN’s motion to compel arbitration.

When AMN recruited Jean Pappas and four other named traveling nurses via telephone with new job opportunities, it gave them ...