Home Health & Hospice Week

Wage and hour-based cases continue to stack up against home care providers.

January case #1: A federal judge has ordered TriMED HealthCare LLC and its owner Beverly Jordan to pay more than $3.8 million in back wages and liquidated damages, plus a civil money penalty of $180,141, the Department of Labor says in a release. The Pennsylvania agency provides home care services to patients with disabilities and others.

The DOL Wage and Hour Division found TriMED and Jordan intentionally underpaid 433 direct care employees by “lower(ing) their regular rates when employees worked over 40 hours in a workweek,” paying some administrative employees straight time when overtime pay was required, and failing to pay direct care workers for travel time between client homes, the DOL says. They also didn’t keep records as required.

“Employers who intentionally disregard the law and fail to pay workers their hard-earned wages will find that we will use every tool available, including enforcement actions in federal court, to hold them accountable,” Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda says in the release.

January case #2: Kynd Hearts Home Health Care LLC and its co-owners, Shawndell D. Harris and Alvonda Evans, must pay more than $1.5 million in back wages and liquidated damages to 194 employees following a summary judgement in federal court, the DOL says in a release. It also must pay a civil money penalty of $226,512, in part because it was investigated for similar problems in 2014.

Chesapeake, Virginia-based Kynd Hearts paid straight time for hours over 40 in some workweeks, and reduced employees’ hourly rates the more hours employees worked and then paid an overtime rate based on the reduced hourly rate. It also failed to show total premium pay for all overtime hours worked in a workweek in its payroll records, the DOL says.

“The employers knew their obligations to pay proper overtime rates and yet, they willfully disregarded the law and denied workers all of their hard-earned wages,” Principal Deputy Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman says in the release. “That is wage theft, and it will not be tolerated,” Looman maintains.

“Other home healthcare industry employers should take note (of the case) and ensure that they are paying their employees in compliance with the law,” Nanda adds.