An individual filed a class-action complaint on Tuesday against his former employer, Surgical Care Affiliates LLC (SCA), and affiliated entities, alleging Sherman Act and Clayton Act violations through lowering employee wages in an anticompetitive conspiracy among other companies in the market. The Northern District of Illinois lawsuit came on the heels of a Jan. 5 Department of Justice criminal indictment against SCA, claiming the company and others were colluding to control the labor market.
SCA owns and operates about 230 outpatient care facilities across the country, serving around 1 million patients every year, with approximately 10,000 employees, according to the complaint. Plaintiff Allen Spradling was an employee of SCA from Sept. 22, 2008, until April 26, 2013, as a manager of the program management office and then as director of information technology.
Spradling claimed that SCA, SCA President and Chief Executive Officer Andrew Hayek, UnitedHealth Group Inc., United Surgical Partners Holding Company Inc., United Surgical Partners International Inc. (USPI), Tenet Healthcare Corporation, and other unknown entities or individuals colluded to agree “not to compete for each other’s senior-level employees in the United States, refraining from soliciting or hiring employees absent the knowledge and consent of their existing employers,” termed “no-poach” agreements. The plaintiff argued that these no-poach agreements began in 2010 or earlier and continued at least through 2017.
“Defendants’ no-poach agreements were not necessary to any legitimate business transaction or lawful collaboration among the companies,” the complaint claimed. “Defendants’ conspiracy was strictly a tool to suppress their senior-level employees’ compensation, thereby reducing their own expenses.”
The complaint cited multiple email communications among the defendants, such as one from May 14, 2010, from the CEO of USPI to USPI employees that said, “I had a conversation w [Defendant Hayek] re people and we reached agreement that we would not approach each other’s proactively.” Another cited example, from July 2017, from one USPI to another, discussed a job candidate believed to be from SCA, construing that despite “look[ing] great,” the USPI recruiter “can’t poach her,” according to the complaint.
The plaintiff argued that the defendants’ alleged agreements “accomplished their purpose” of reducing competition among senior-level employees and suppressing their compensation “below competitive levels.”
“The conspiracy disrupted the efficient allocation of labor that would have existed if Defendants had competed for, rather than colluded against, their current and prospective senior-level employees,” the complaint claimed.
Spradling requests that the class be certified, that the defendants be enjoined from continuing their alleged unlawful conduct, and that he and the class members recover monetary damages, among other relief.
The plaintiff is represented by Freed Kanner London & Millen LLC, Joseph Saveri Law Firm Inc., and Keller Lenkner LLC.
