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EXCLUSIVE: Pair Team Hit With Class Action Alleging Unpaid Wages Across California Workforce - RuntimeWire

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Why it matters

Pair Team is using AI to lower the cost of serving complex Medicare and Medicaid patients. Two employee cases put scrutiny on the human workforce that still carries the model.

A former Pair Team worker whose public profile identifies her as a lead care manager is seeking to represent more than 40 current and former California employees in a proposed class action accusing the healthcare startup of failing to pay workers for time spent working through meal periods and after clocking out.

The complaint was filed July 31 in San Francisco Superior Court and appeared in the court’s newly listed cases Thursday. It names Pair Team Inc., Pair Team MSO LLC, Pair Team Medical Group P.A. and Pair Team Medical Group of California P.C. as defendants.

Erica Rincon Charles alleges that she worked for the companies as an hourly, non-exempt employee from approximately April 2023 until Pair Team terminated her employment in June 2026.

According to the complaint, Pair Team regularly scheduled Charles for at least five eight-hour days each week. She says she also worked beyond eight hours per day and 40 hours per week without receiving all the straight-time and overtime wages she had earned.

Charles alleges that she and other employees performed work during meal periods and continued working after clocking out for the day. Some of that unpaid time should have been paid at the overtime rate, the complaint says.

The lawsuit also claims that Pair Team required, pressured or encouraged employees to complete work that prevented them from taking legally compliant meal and rest breaks. Employees were allegedly denied the additional hour of pay required under California law when those breaks were missed.

The proposed class covers every hourly-paid or non-exempt employee who worked for any of the four Pair Team entities in California during the four years preceding the lawsuit. Charles estimates that the group contains over 40 people.

The complaint brings eight causes of action under California law:

Failure to pay minimum and straight-time wages

Failure to pay overtime

Failure to provide compliant meal periods

Failure to authorize and permit rest periods

Failure to pay all final wages when employment ended

Failure to provide accurate wage statements

Failure to reimburse necessary employment expenses

Unfair business practices

Charles also alleges that Pair Team failed to reimburse workers for expenses they paid while performing their jobs. The complaint does not identify the particular expenses, the number of unpaid hours or a total damages figure.

The lawsuit seeks unpaid wages, overtime, meal-and-rest-period premiums, expense reimbursement, waiting-time penalties, damages for inaccurate wage statements, restitution, attorneys’ fees and an injunction against the alleged practices.

The allegations have not been proven, and Pair Team has not yet filed a response.

Work that continued after the clock stopped

Charles’s complaint says Pair Team maintained practices that left some employees working during unpaid time.

Workers allegedly continued performing tasks after clocking out and worked through meal periods without receiving compensation. Pair Team also allegedly failed to keep accurate records of the hours they worked.

The complaint gives few details about the tasks involved or the managers who allegedly imposed them. It does not identify a written policy requiring off-the-clock work. Charles instead alleges that the volume and timing of assigned work caused employees to miss breaks and continue working without pay.

Pair Team allegedly required employees to work longer than five consecutive hours without providing a 30-minute, uninterrupted meal period. Some employees working at least 10 hours were also allegedly denied a second meal period.

Similar allegations apply to rest breaks. Charles says workers were pressured to perform tasks that prevented them from taking the paid 10-minute breaks required for each four-hour period of work.

When Charles’s employment ended in June, Pair Team allegedly failed to include unpaid wages, overtime, break premiums and reimbursable expenses in her final paycheck.

The lawsuit claims the same practices affected other former employees, exposing Pair Team to waiting-time penalties of up to 30 days of wages for each eligible worker.

Charles’s attorneys also say they requested her personnel file, wage statements, timekeeping records and other employment documents before filing suit. Pair Team allegedly failed to...