The State of Washington reached a tentative agreement on Friday to settle a longstanding class-action lawsuit with part-time instructors at community colleges, agreeing to pay them $11-million for wrongfully denying health-care benefits during the summer.

The agreement, which still must be approved by the State Legislature and the King County Superior Court, comes after the State Supreme Court ruled in June that part-time instructors who worked at least half time were eligible for health insurance during the summer. To comply with that decision, the state paid $1.5-million to cover the health insurance of part-timers for the summer of 2003.

The larger agreement reached on Friday would pay for the years before 2003 that were the subject of the class-action lawsuit filed in 1999 by two part-time community college instructors.

"Many part-time faculty literally pray at the beginning of the summer that they won't get sick," Eva Mader, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement. "To be relieved of that kind of pressure is enormous."

More than 1,500 instructors in Washington who have worked half time since 1999 will be affected by the settlement.

The state had maintained that instructors like Ms. Mader were "temporary employees" who worked quarter to quarter and, as a result, were not eligible as were full-time instructors for health benefits during the summer. But last June, the State Supreme Court rejected that argument and said the state needed to examine "the actual work circumstances" of the employee. Ms. Mader, for instance, had worked as an instructor for 21 years, and the court found that was "not a temporary position."

The two plaintiffs in the health-care case also sued for retirement benefits. The state settled that case in 2002 for $12-million.