MADISON — The man who has recently worked the most hours for the Green County Emergency Medical Service is suing his employer for allegedly failing to pay minimum wage or overtime on “on call” in violation of state and federal law.

Anthony Anglin ranks first among his co-workers in hours worked, according to the private, non-profit Monroe-based firm’s website.

The lawsuit filed in federal court alleged that:

GCEMS pays its paramedics $3 per hour when on call during days and $6 per hour from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m.

While on call, the firm requires paramedics to respond in uniform to the worksite within four minutes or otherwise remain on site.

To meet that requirement, most paramedics spend their on-call hours on site or so close to it that they can’t effectively call it their own time.

GCEMS has 55 volunteers and three full-time members, according to its website.

Anglin’s suit seeks class-action status for all employees subject to those wage policies.

Anglin’s attorney, Natalie Gerloff, of Hawks Quindel, of Madison, wrote in an email that EMS operators often pay employees less than minimum wage for on-call hours, which can be legal. However, how restrictive the employer limits their employees while on call determines if the time is subject to minimum wage or not.

“Mr. Anglin has alleged that Green County EMS overly restricts on-call time, making it actually compensable work hours that have gone unpaid at minimum wage rates for years. Mr. Anglin further alleges that Green County EMS improperly excluded those same compensable on-call hours, and other mandatory training hours, from overtime wage calculations and pay,” Gerloff recently wrote in a request for comment.

The suit also alleged that:

Paramedics log their “on ambulance” hours on “run sheets” that include other data from each run. ECMS regularly changed the paramedics “run sheets” to cut the number of “on ambulance” hours worked. The reduced “on ambulance” hours were then paid at the on call rate.

Paramedics were regularly scheduled to work more than 40 hours a week and did work more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay. 

Joshua Johanningmeier, of Godfrey & Kahn, S.C., an attorney for GCEMS didn’t return a phone call seeking comment on the suit. He filed a 29-page answer to it in which he denies all the allegations regarding failure to pay overtime, record hours worked or maintained unlawful pay policies or practicers.

Instead, Johanningmeier contended that Anglin and other similar employees weren’t paramedics but served as paid volunteers and not full-time employees.

Volunteers pick their own shifts within the firm’s policies and schedules, he wrote.

The volunteers also decide whether to remain at the station while on call but they are free to move around the community if they can respond to the station within four minutes of being summoned.

Johanningmeier requested that the suit be dismissed and his clients be awarded attorney fees and costs.

In a phone interview, Gerloff was asked if GCEMS would be adversely affected if the suit succeeded.

While it was difficult to know what the outcome of the suit would have on the ambulance service, employers, including GCEMS, are required to comply with wage laws, she said.

“They have tons and tons of money,” she said.

Online tax records for the private, tax-exempt firm showed it had total revenue exceeding $3.5 million in 2022, according to Gerloff.

According to court documents filed by Johanningmeier:

GCEMS operates four ambulances and a rapid response unit that is the primary ambulance service for the city of Monroe and other communities with a 278-square-mile territory in Green and Lafayette counties.

It employs a full-time EMS Chief, full-time paid EMTs and paramedics, as well as approximately 40 paid volunteers, who are a combination of EMT-Basics, Advanced EMTs, EMT Intermediates, EMT Paramedics, and emergency vehicle drivers.

The case is set for trial in December 2027 before District Judge James Peterson.