Home Health & Hospice Week

A Chesapeake, Virginia home health company and its owner are paying high six figures for wage violations.

“The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a default judgment to recover $703,609 in back wages and liquidated damages for 38 employees denied overtime pay” by Heavenly Hands Home Healthcare and owner Lauren Wilson, DOL says in a release.

They “willfully failed to maintain accurate records of all hours worked and paid straight time for hours worked over 40 in a work week” that should have been paid overtime, DOL says. They also “told workers not to speak with department investigators, and falsified employees’ signatures on official payment and payroll receipt records to make it appear as though they had made the payment,” according to the agency.

“The judgment sends a clear message” that DOL “will seek legal remedies to ensure workers’ rights are protected and that we will not tolerate employers who shortchange wages or intimidate employees for exercising their federally protected rights,” Regional Solicitor Oscar Hampton III in Philadelphia says in the release.