Home Health & Hospice Week

Plus: Hospice stiffed its workers too, DOL says.

If you were wondering how hard the feds are coming down on wage-related home care infractions, a group of cases this month will show you.

Case #1: A Pennsylvania federal court has found Anna Zaydenberg, owner of Elder Resource Management Inc. operating as ComForCare Home Care, and her daughter Marsha Simonds, owner of Staff Source, liable for $1.24 million in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages, the Department of Labor says in a release. The court ordered the pair and their companies to pay the more than $2.4 million in overtime back wages and liquidated damages after a three-day trial confirmed the pair used illegal pay practices to avoid paying full wages to 345 workers who provided daily living assistance and home healthcare in the Pittsburgh area.

Zaydenberg and Simonds violated the Fair Labor Standards Act when they redirected workers’ overtime hours to the staffing company’s pay records to avoid paying OT. “ComForCare staff handled payroll for both companies and manipulated the payrolls repeatedly so that each check showed less than 40 hours a week and often the company paid no overtime, even when employees worked 50, 60 or more hours some weeks,” the DOL notes in the release.

The finding “sends an important message to employers in the home healthcare industry,” Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda says in the release. “Employers must pay workers overtime when the law requires and they cannot evade the law by trying to hide their violations. The Solicitor’s Office will continue to focus on this industry and show those who defy the law that there are costly consequences to such actions,” Nanda adds.

Case #2: The DOL has obtained a consent judgment requiring Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania-based home health agency Superior Health Inc. and owner Tina Bell to pay 75 caregiver employees a total of $293,990 in back wages and damages. Superior and Bell intentionally misclassified workers as independent contractors and misapplied an overtime rule to avoid paying full wages, Labor says in a release.

The DOL Wage and House Division also assessed a $66,956 civil money penalty for “the willful nature of the violations,” it says. Superior and Bell did not fully respond to discovery requests, the release notes.

“As employers struggle to find the people they need to operate their businesses, those who ignore workers’ rights to full wages and benefits are likely to struggle to retain and recruit workers,” WHD District Director John DuMont says in the release. “Employers who abide by the law will certainly have the competitive advantage over those who do not,” DuMont notes.

“This case demonstrates [DOL’s] commitment to pursue litigation when employers fail to comply with FLSA requirements,” Regional Solicitor Oscar L. Hampton III says in the release.

Case #3: Also in Pennsylvania, the DOL has obtained a consent judgment requiring that Everest Home Care and owner Bhuwan Acharya pay more than $1.4 million in back wages and liquidated damages to 218 workers.

Everest paid workers a straight-time hourly rate instead of one-and-one-half their required rate for hours over 40 in a work week, the DOL says. And it “attempted to mask the wage theft by representing straight-time pay as overtime when overtime wages were required,” the release adds. Everest also failed to include recruitment commissions and hourly coronavirus hazard pay in employees’ required rates of pay when calculating overtime.

Case #4: Puerto Rico hospice Hospicio la Fe, consisting of Hospicio en el Hogar Fe in Manati and Esperanza de P.R. in Mayaguez, classified workers as voluntary personnel incorrectly, violated minimum wage requirements, and failed to pay overtime, the DOL says in a release. “The investigation led to the recovery of $54,673 in back wages for the 62 employees,” the release notes.