• ViaQuest Residential Services recently agreed to pay $975,000 to settle claims it misclassified program managers as exempt from overtime under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and Ohio’s wage laws.
• The case, Simmons v. ViaQuest Residential Services LLC, No. 2:23-00201 (S.D. Ohio), centered on whether program managers’ “primary duty” was management or direct patient care.
• One hundred-six plaintiffs opted in after conditional certification, illustrating how quickly liability can scale with companywide classification practices.
• Healthcare employers may want to consider auditing the actual duties of their program managers and similar frontline supervisors to ensure exempt classifications withstand scrutiny.

The Complaint

Kenneth Simmons filed suit in January 2023 on behalf of himself and similarly situated program managers at ViaQuest Residential Services, LLC, a company that provides home healthcare services, including support to individuals with developmental disabilities. Simmons alleged in the complaint that ViaQuest maintained a companywide policy of classifying program managers as salaried exempt employees and failing to pay overtime. Simmons alleged that program managers’ primary duties were nonexempt in nature—consisting largely of providing direct patient care—and that they did not qualify as “executive,” “administrative,” or “professional” employees under the FLSA’s white-collar exemptions. The complaint raised claims under the FLSA, the Ohio Wage Act, and the...

Read Full Story: https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMi7gFBVV95cUxOVTBrQlF4a3R2d1A5ZXlPcU8x...