Valley Children's wage theft probe 'on pause,' Fresno City Attorney says
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- Janz announced Valley Children’s investigation 18 months ago; now says probe is “on pause”
- Valley Children’s has faced multiple wage-related employee lawsuits in recent years.
- The attorney for one case has appealed the hospital’s settlement of another case.
More than 18 months after announcing he would investigate Valley Children’s Hospital for wage theft, Fresno City Attorney Andrew Janz says the probe is “on pause” while the hospital’s most recent employee wage theft lawsuit plays out in court.
In a recent interview with The Fresno Bee, Janz said he will “defer” to Brian Whelan, the attorney representing a nurse who sued Valley Children’s in Madera County Superior Court for wage theft in June 2024. Janz said he believes Whelan is working out a potential settlement between the employees and the hospital but added he “can’t speak” to his own investigation of the hospital any further.
His June 2024 announcement that he would investigate whether Madera County-based Valley Children’s committed wage theft at its Fresno facilities came at an opportune moment for the city attorney. Valley Children’s had fallen into a highly-publicized controversy as tax filings revealed it had assigned its CEO, Todd Suntrapak, compensation packages of more than $5 million in 2021 and 2022.
The multi-billion-dollar nonprofit healthcare organization was also attempting to settle a class action wage theft lawsuit filed by nurses in 2022 as it also faced a new wage theft lawsuit from Whelan’s client, nurse Bonnie Ferreria, on behalf of herself and all other affected staff.
At the same time, Janz was preparing to launch Fresno’s Wage Protection Program. The program allows workers to file wage and hour-related complaints about employers within the city that Janz’s office can investigate and prosecute in court.
Neither Whelan nor Valley Children’s confirmed whether they are working on a settlement in the Ferreria case. Valley Children’s declined to say whether it was ever contacted by the Fresno City Attorney’s Office about an investigation.
“We have no updates to provide regarding these issues,” the hospital said in an email to The Bee.
Wage violations reduced to price of ‘burger and fries’
Whelan did tell The Bee he has filed an appeal against the $400,000 settlement a Madera County judge approved last year in a wage theft civil case filed against Valley Children’s in 2022.
That case, filed by nurses Briana Westfall and Gloria Garcia, claimed the hospital committed multiple labor code violations, including failure to pay all wages and overtime, provide for proper meal and rest breaks, and reimburse expenses, among other allegations. The settlement would reimburse thousands of members of the class, including nurses, who worked at Valley Children’s between June 2019 and April 2024.
Though Valley Children’s has always said it is innocent of these labor code violations, the hospital said last year that it pursued the settlement so it could “continue focusing on providing the best care for children throughout the Central Valley.”
Judge Michael Jurkovich approved the settlement last May despite the objections of dozens of Valley Children’s nurses, including Whelan’s client, Ferreria. Whelan argued the Westfall case did not adequately investigate below-minimum-wage payments to nurses during their “on-call” shifts — a main complaint in the wage theft lawsuit Ferreria filed in June 2024.
The settlement would also release Valley Children’s from those types of claims if the alleged violations occurred before April 2024. Whelan has said that would void most of the “on-call” claims made in the Ferreria lawsuit, which intends to establish an affected class that worked at Valley Children’s from 2020-2024.
Ferreria has said Valley Children’s Westfall settlement would reimburse her only $54.58, though she estimates in her lawsuit that she is owed “not less than $27,832” in damages related to being paid less than the minimum wage while on mandatory standby during “on-call” shifts.
In a Thursday statement to The Bee, Whelan said the settlement reached in the Westfall case is “based on the unsupported declaration of an out-of-town attorney opining that this was somehow a fair outcome for our frontline workers caring for our children.”
“We do not believe an outcome that reduces extreme wage violations to the price of a hamburger and fries can reasonably be considered ‘fair, reasonable, and adequate’ as the law mandates,” he said. “We are confident the appellate process will provide clarity.”
This story was originally published January 20, 2026 at 1:57 PM.
