On June 20, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted the parties’ joint motion and conditionally certified a four-state collective of salaried care management workers in Kelly v. Evolent Health LLC, Civil Action No. 1:19-cv-00500. In this Evolent Health overtime lawsuit, the group included utilization review nurses, case managers, care advisors, and care coordinators. The Siegel Law Group represented the workers.
Judge Jorge L. Alonso signed the order on June 20, 2019, and because both sides asked for it, this was an agreed order rather than a contested ruling. The plaintiff’s earlier Motion for Step-One Notice was withdrawn.
In close paraphrase, the collective the court conditionally certified in 2019 had these requirements:
The order listed more than two dozen included titles. Notice was to go to people in these positions between June 13, 2016 and the present, as the order put it.
Evolent Health had 14 days to produce names, licenses held, last known addresses and phone numbers, and personal email addresses. Notice was then to go out by first class mail, text message, and email, and workers were to have 60 days after the first mailing to opt in. The text and email had to tell recipients that Evolent Health’s records showed they had provided services to the company and might be eligible to join the lawsuit.
The collective was broad, spanning four states and many titles, from nurse reviewers to social work care advisors. Text notice, with mail and email, gave workers several ways to hear about the case.
This was an agreed, preliminary step and not a finding that anyone was owed overtime or that Evolent Health broke the law.
The order describes the claims as overtime pay claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), without saying why overtime was not paid. As general information, a salary does not by itself make a worker exempt (see salary vs. hourly pay and overtime), and the employer must prove an exemption.
Many listed titles were nursing roles. A Department of Labor regulation, 29 C.F.R. § 541.301(e)(2), states that registered nurses generally meet the learned professional duties test. That exemption also needs salary-basis pay and a main duty that truly requires advanced knowledge. Whether a utilization review job qualifies depends on the work.
As general information, many federal courts at the time used a two-step approach, and the joint motion the court granted asked for “Step One” conditional certification (see how collective action certification works). Some federal appeals courts have since changed this approach — the Fifth Circuit in Swales v. KLLM Transport Services (2021) and the Sixth Circuit in Clark v. A&L Homecare & Training Center (2023). The Seventh Circuit adopted a different approach in Richards v. Eli Lilly & Co. (2025).
This page describes a 2019 court order. The time to join that collective was set by the court in that case. If you have worked in a similar role, the Siegel Law Group can evaluate your own claims.
Have you worked in utilization review or management, or as a case manager, care advisor, or care coordinator, while paid a salary? If you worked more than 40 hours in a week, a lawyer can review how you were paid.
Contact the Siegel Law Group for a free consultation.
Related rulings: Slaughter v. Caidan Management, another Northern District of Illinois case involving managed care workers, Del Toro v. Centene, another multi-state collective of salaried care management workers, and Menth v. Concerto Healthcare, another agreed order for salaried utilization review workers.
It depends on the actual duties. Many care advisor and case manager titles in the 2019 Evolent Health order were RN roles. A Labor Department regulation treats RNs as generally satisfying the learned professional duties test, but not licensed practical nurses. That exemption also requires salary-basis pay and a primary duty that actually requires advanced knowledge, so a title alone does not settle it.
The 2019 order named more than two dozen. Examples were UR Nurse, UM Nurse, RN Case Manager, RN Care Advisor, Nurse Reviewer, Care Coordinator, and RN Patient Coordinator. Members also had to be salaried, non-supervisory, based in Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, or Texas, and doing Care Management Work.
Yes, membership required at least one week over 40 hours within the past three years, plus pay on a salary basis and a listed type of job title. Under the 2019 order, workers had 60 days from the first mailing to send in a consent form.
It is a request that the workers and the employer file together, asking the court to approve a collective and notice, and the judge granted one in the Evolent Health case. An agreed order like this does not decide who wins, and the employer kept its right to seek decertification later.
The Siegel Law Group is a national overtime and wage law firm devoted entirely to representing workers denied overtime pay. Where many firms include wage cases as a small part of a broader employment practice, the Siegel Law Group has built its entire practice around overtime litigation — and the results reflect that commitment: $100M+ recovered for workers, 50+ class and collective action certifications, and 100+ federal lawsuits filed in 27+ federal courts nationwide. Founding attorney Jack Siegel is a Bloomberg BNA contributing author on wage and hour law.
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