NSW junior doctors class action

Only group members who registered to participate by 12 July 2024 are eligible to participate in the settlement.

• You are a group member if you were:

• employed as a junior medical officer (an intern, resident, registrar, and/or senior registrar) by NSW Health at any time between 16 December 2014 and 21 March 2024;

• required, from time to time, to work more than your rostered ordinary hours; and

• not paid all your entitlements for that work

The Settlement Scheme was approved by the Supreme Court of NSW as part of the Settlement Approval orders made on 12 August 2024. The Settlement Scheme establishes a procedure for the exchange of Claim Data between NSW Health and the Scheme Administrator, determining the eligibility of Participating Group Members, assessing the Distribution amounts and processing payments of the final Distribution amounts.

The Settlement Scheme includes the Loss Assessment Formula which details how each Participating Group Member’s entitlement to a share of the Settlement Sum will be calculated.

As Court Appointed Scheme Administrator, it is Maurice Blackburn’s role to ensure that the Settlement Scheme is implemented fairly and consistently in the interests of all Participating Group Members.

A copy of the Settlement Scheme can be viewed here.

We are aware that many group members have not kept records of the overtime they worked.

One of the principles underpinning the Settlement Scheme is to minimise, as far as possible, the information and documentation participating group members are required to provide. In accordance with the Settlement Scheme, determination of eligibility and loss assessment will in the first instance be based on Claim Data provided by NSW Health. If there are errors in this Claim Data and a participating group member seeks an amendment to the Claim Data then they may be required to provide information and / or documents in support. 

At the settlement approval hearing, Maurice Blackburn asked the Court to approve its legal costs which include fees for the work done by solicitors and disbursements (including fees for barristers, experts and court fees). The Court can only approve an amount of legal costs which it considered to be fair and reasonable, and in making that decision it took into account the opinion of an independent expert costs assessor.

The Court approved costs of $9,046,028.25 up to the settlement approval hearing on 12 August 2024. These costs were incurred over more than four years and include the costs of investigating and preparing the matter for trial, and numerous pre-trial hearings. The Court approved a further $7,467,988.58 million for settlement administration costs. 

At the settlement approval hearing, the Court ordered that the reasonable legal costs of conducting the class action and the settlement administration be deducted from the settlement sum, before calculating each participating group member’s entitlement.

This means that, if you are eligible to participate as a group member in the distribution of the settlement sum, your share of the settlement will be calculated and paid to you after deduction of any legal costs. Meaning, any distribution paid to you will be nett of legal costs. 

By the registration deadline of 12 July 2024, approximately 15,600 individuals had registered to participate in the settlement.

A class action is a legal action that is brought by one or more persons (the plaintiffs) on their own behalf and on behalf of a group of persons (group members) against another person or persons (defendant), where the plaintiffs and the group members all have similar claims against the defendant. The plaintiff in the NSW junior doctors class action is Dr Amireh Fakhouri.

The plaintiffs in a class action do not need to seek the consent of group members to commence a class action on their behalf, or to identify a specific group member or members. However, group members can cease to be group members by ‘opting out’ of the class action before a Court-imposed deadline. An explanation of how group members could opt out was contained in a previous notice to group members and the deadline for opting out has now passed.

In December 2020, Dr Amireh Fakhouri filed a class action against the NSW Ministry of Health and the State of NSW covering current and former junior medical officers who worked any time in the period 16 December 2014 and 21 March 2024.  The class action sought to claim unpaid wages for rostered overtime, unrostered overtime, meal breaks, and superannuation.