Katz Banks Kumin LLP

07/15/2026

A federal judge has granted final approval of a class action settlement on behalf of approximately 220 internationally recruited nurses in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Maryland, Missouri, West Virginia, and Virginia.

CommuniCare and WorldWide HealthStaff will pay $1 million and cancel roughly $1.2 million in alleged debt to resolve allegations that the companies failed to pay nurses for time worked and used “stay-or-pay” contracts to illegally force nurses to repay immigration costs, plus other alleged penalties for leaving their jobs.

Learn more about this case: https://katzbanks.com/news/final-approval-villarin/

07/01/2026

A federal judge today granted preliminary approval, pending a formal written order, of a proposed $162 million wage-and-hour class action settlement. The settlement will benefit 200,000 personal assistants who were paid through Public Partnerships LLC (PPL).

This settlement will affect home care workers paid by PPL for New York’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program (CDPAP), and provided services in New York City, Long Island, and Westchester County between March 1, 2025 and April 30, 2026.

More info here: https://katzbanks.com/news/ppl-settlement-approval/

06/26/2026

Early this week, home health care workers represented by Katz Banks Kumin and The Legal Aid Society announced that they have secured a $162M settlement in a lawsuit against Public Partnerships, LLC (PPL), the statewide intermediary for New York's CDPAP program.

Read the announcement: https://katzbanks.com/news/ppl-resolution/

See the proposed settlement:https://www.publicpartnershipssettlement.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/55-1-MOL-ISO-Mot-for-Preliminary-Approval.pdf

06/05/2026

BREAKING: KBK and Whistleblower Aid represent Jeremiah Schofield, a former Social Security Executive who blew the whistle on a Trump administration attempt to falsely declare 2.7 million people as dead in Social Security records, in order to upend their lives and force them out of the country.

Read KBK and Whistleblower Aid’s statement here: https://katzbanks.com/news/schofield-whistleblower/

Jeremiah spoke with the Washington Post about his experience, read here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/06/05/doge-planned-falsely-mark-27-million-people-dead-whistleblower-says/

02/02/2026

Today, a career scientist at the National Institutes of Health filed a whistleblower complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel alleging unlawful retaliation for speaking out about the politicization of science and the cancellation of critical public health research.

Dr. Jenna Norton, a Program Director at NIH, alleges that after raising concerns internally, with Congress, and publicly in her personal capacity, she was placed on indefinite, involuntary administrative leave without explanation, in violation of federal whistleblower protections.

Katz Banks Kumin and Dunn Isaacson Rhee represent Dr. Norton in this matter and are seeking her immediate reinstatement and confirmation that the personnel action taken against her was unlawful.

Learn more about the case here: https://katzbanks.com/news/nih-scientist-files-whistleblower-complaint-alleging-retaliation-by-hhs-and-nih-for-speaking-out-against-politicization-of-science-and-unlawful-grant-terminations/

01/28/2026

Social Security whistleblower client Charles Borges and KBK partner Debra Katz joined Amna Nawaz on PBS NewsHour to discuss allegations that DOGE officials illegally accessed sensitive data in March 2025.
Watch the interview ⬇️

Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice confirmed, in a court filing for another case, that DOGE officials had access to this data and hosted information on a third-party server.

Learn more here: https://katzbanks.com/news/borges-doj-filing/

The Social Security Administration says members of Elon Musk’s DOGE team working at the agency accessed and shared sensitive data. The latest disclosure from the Trump administration seemed to confirm...