SINKING SPRING, PA – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgment requiring a Sinking Spring home healthcare agency and its operator– which intentionally misclassified workers as independent contractors and misapplied an overtime rule to avoid paying full wages – to pay 75 caregiver employees a total of $293,990 in back wages and liquidated damages.
The action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania commenced with a June 2021 complaint filed by the department’s Office of the Solicitor, and followed an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division.
The division found that Superior Health Inc. and owner Tina Bell did not pay the overtime premium for hours worked over 40 in a workweek by willfully misclassifying workers and identifying the workers as live-in caregivers to avoid paying overtime, which is a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Investigators also determined that the employers failed to keep and preserve payroll records for employees for at least two years, including accurate records of employees’ total weekly overtime premium pay, as the law requires.
The investigation determined that Superior Health and Bell owed the affected employees – who worked between 40 and 90 hours per week – a total of $146,995 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages. The division also assessed a $66,956 civil money penalty for the willful nature of the violations.
The department filed the complaint in June...
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