Company failed to update pay practices with the passage of Home Health Care Final Rule
DETROIT – A federal judge has found Independent Home Care of Michigan LLC and its owners Mary Clark and Kathryn Flick liable to pay 23 home healthcare workers a total of $93,331 – representing $46,665 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages– after the company failed to pay companion workers overtime wages.
Judge Victoria A. Roberts of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District, Southern Division of Michigan issued her findings against the employers on May 17, 2022, following a two-day bench trial on May 9 and 10.
Independent Home Care of Michigan challenged the findings of a U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation that found the company in violation of the Home Health Care Final Rule of 2013 that requires staffing agencies to pay overtime to companion services workers when they work in excess of 40 hours in a work-week. The Home Health Care Final Rule went into effect on Jan. 1, 2015. The employers failed to pay overtime wages from Jan. 23, 2018 through June 1, 2019. Investigators also found the Fenton, Michigan, company failed to keep accurate records of hours worked and rates of pay for work performed – violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Independent Home Health Care argued against liquidated damages claiming ignorance of the change in the law and reliance on advice given by the department on the old law in 1999 and on a community...
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