Overview
Cohen Milstein and co-counsel represent nurses recruited from foreign countries to work in U.S. hospitals in a Human Rights class action against Harren Equity Partners, LLC, a private equity firm, for allegedly knowingly profiting from a forced labor scheme for more than a decade, carried out by its portfolio company, MedPro (Management Health Systems).
Plaintiffs allege that Harren Equity Partners knowingly benefited from MedPro’s use of steep early- termination penalties and the threat of lawsuits to keep nurses in low-paid, understaffed, and unsafe hospital jobs in violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA).
Plaintiffs are represented by Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll LLP, Berger Montague PC, Towards Justice, The Law Offices of Magen E. Kellam, P.A., Touff Schweich PLLC, and MichieHamlett.
Case Background
According to the complaint, MedPro required its nurses to sign multiyear contracts carrying tens of thousands of dollars in financial penalties for leaving before the contract term ended, plus interest, litigation costs, and attorneys’ fees [with no upper limit]. The complaint further alleges that Harren, which acquired a controlling stake in MedPro in 2016 and placed two of its three partners on MedPro’s board, knew or should have known of the scheme given its hands-on management role and MedPro’s history of related litigation and settlements dating back to 2014.