California physician's assistant is sued by her employer for $138,000 TRAINING COSTS, as more firms

A physician's assistant in California has been sued by her former employer for $138,000 in training costs it claims was spent on her before she resigned. 

Drew Lakey quit her job at the Skin and Cancer Institute in Bakersfield in November 2022 and provided four months' notice, according to The New York Times. 

But the company filed a lawsuit against her in late August claiming she owes them $38,000 in training costs and more than $100,000 for 'loss of business' after it was unable to hand over her responsibilities to someone else. 

Lakey, then 26, signed a training repayment agreement (TRA) with the Skin and Cancer Institute when she was hired that requires workers to pay back costs for training if they leave before a certain period.

And it appears to be a growing trend, with an alarming number of firms now making young staffers sign these agreements, which are often presented as ultimatums late in the hiring process that can penalize them for quitting early. 

Drew Lakey, a physician's assistant in California, was sued by her former employer for $138,000 in training costs it says was spent on her before she resigned

She quit her job at the Skin and Cancer Institute in Bakersfield in November 2022 and provided four months' notice, according to The New York Times

But the company filed a lawsuit against her in late August claiming she owes them $38,000 in training costs and more than $100,000 for 'loss of business' after it was unable to hand over her responsibilities to someone else

When Lakey signed her contract, it stated she would get $50,000 worth of training but would have to pay it back on a prorated basis if she quit before 2025. 

However, the Skin and Cancer Institute did not explain how it came to the figure which is higher than the average cost of tuition for a year of physician assistant school.

In the lawsuit, the company claimed she agreed to the TRA as it was giving her 'high value' training.

Lakey said the figures did not make sense to her and that she did not see the training repayment provision as a big risk at the time.

'I thought there was nothing that could happen that would make me want to leave the contract early,' she told The New York Times. 

Lakey spent three months shadowing another physician assistant, while earning a reduced salary, at the start of her job. 

She quickly realized she wanted to leave but was worried she would have to pay back tens of thousands of dollars.

But she eventually decided to hand in her notice because the company wasn't a good fit for her. 

Dailymail.com has contacted the Skin and Cancer Institute for comment on the lawsuit which is still ongoing. 

Companies are increasingly making young workers sign TRAs as they see it as a way to improve staff retention and avoid having to pay to train employees who leave soon after.

Lakey, then 26, signed a training repayment agreement when she was hired and it requires workers to pay back training costs if they leave before certain period 

In the lawsuit, the company claimed she agreed to the TRA as it was giving her 'high value' training

Madison Birch, 26, quit her job in Augusta, Georgia in intraoperative neuromonitoring, which involves monitoring the nervous systems of patients during surgery, in November. 

SpecialtyCare sued her in February for $30,000 to recoup training costs and court documents show the company's TRA included a clause that said the money owed increased after the training was completed, up to three years. 

She had applied to work at the company, a contractor that provides operating room support staff to hospitals, for over two years before she finally got a job offer. 

The company sent her to train for two weeks and said they would offer supervision and mentoring while she tried to pass a board certification exam, she claimed. 

Birch was earning $35,000 at the time but her salary would increase dramatically when she passed the exam. 

But she did not enjoy the job due the long surgeries which she could not step away from, even to use the bathroom. 

She decided to quit without having passed the board certification exams but was worried about former employees she says were hounded by debt collectors or sued for leaving early. 

'I told myself mentally that I could never work for anybody that made me hate what I did,' Burch said. 

Dailymail.com has contacted SpecialtyCare for comment. The lawsuit is currently still ongoing. 

The owner of Oh Sweet Skincare in Bellevue, Washington, also filed a lawsuit against an ex-employee for $2,244.

This figure included $1,900 in training reimbursement and expenses at a work conference.

She did not want to be named over fears of harassment but said she did it because employees who job hop are detrimental to small businesses like hers.

The owner added that she has lost money on training new employees. But she does not require those with experience to sign a TRA if they can prove they have the skills needed for the role. 

Florida-based Southern Airways Express has sued 60 former pilots since May and argued it is owed $20,000 for training from the jobs that pay between $12 and $21 an hour.

Almost 10 percent of people who took part in a 2020 study by the Survey Research Institute at Cornell University were covered by the agreement. 

The practice is particularly common in the nursing and trucking industries.

Madison Birch, 26, quit her job in Augusta, Georgia in intraoperative neuromonitoring, which involves monitoring the nervous systems of patients during surgery, in November

SpecialtyCare sued her in February for $30,000 to recoup training costs and court documents show the company's TRA included a clause that said the money owed increased after the training was completed, up to three years

Birch decided to quit without having passed the board certification exams but was worried about former employees she says were hounded by debt collectors or sued for leaving early

A survey by the National Nurses United found that nearly 40 percent of new nurses were made to sign the agreement in the last decade. 

And a Bloomberg Businessweek report last year said hundreds of lawsuits were filed by staffing agencies against health care workers who quit or threatened to leave. 

Employment lawyer Ashley Tremain has noticed an increase in TRAs over the last six years. She hears from workers about the issue a few times a month. 

'They’re just becoming ubiquitous as people are trying to find creative ways to move around noncompete restrictions,' she said. 

Tremain is usually contacted by people who quit their jobs and then receive a letter from their former employer demanding money for their training and the most common value she sees is $20,000.

She added that companies send a relatively small number of cases to court or debt collectors. 

'It’s really an enormous amount of power that the employer holds in that situation,' she said. 

Dan Pyne, an attorney with Hopkins & Carley in Silicon Valley, has himself written TRAs and represented companies who enforce these contracts. 

He said those who come to him are either looking to shift some operation costs to employees, which is illegal in California, or help employees learn new skills which will benefit them later in their careers. 

'When the training is required by the employer, that is the employer’s cost of doing business, and they can’t force the employee to bear that cost or to reimburse that cost,' Pyne said.

The owner of Oh Sweet Skincare in Bellevue, Washington, also filed a lawsuit against an ex-employee for $2,244. This figure included $1,900 in training reimbursement and expenses at a work conference

Florida-based Southern Airways Express has sued 60 former pilots since May and argued it is owed $20,000 for training from the jobs that pay between $12 and $21 an hour

'But when the employee is going through the training voluntarily, primarily for their own benefit, in those situations, as a rule, the repayment obligation would be enforceable and would be legal.'

It is claimed that TRAs are not always used to recoup training costs but to discourage employees from leaving. 

Trisha D’Allaird, 43, a cosmetologist in New York, claimed an ex-employer of his put up a lawsuit filed against former employees for violating their TRAs in the break room. 

Regulators have started to take action against the legality of the agreements with the Biden Administration moving to limit them. 

The Federal Trade Commission proposed a rule that would prohibit most non-compete clauses and many TRAs. 

While the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found in July that the agreement 'poses the risk of suppressing wages and forcing workers to stay in jobs they do not want' and 'trainings may have greatly inflated valuations'. 

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