A U.S. district court ordered a Pittsburgh-area home health care company to pay nearly $1.5 million in back wages, damages and civil fines Friday, after a U.S. Department of Labor investigation found that the company had willfully manipulated its records to avoid paying its employees overtime.
The department of labor investigation determined that Everest Home Care LLC, a local provider of personal assistive services based out of Brentwood and Erie, between July 21, 2018, and Oct. 16, 2021, withheld $719,962.50 in overtime wages from 218 employees.
In November 2019, the department began investigating Everest for non-compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act, which sets the overtime rate at one and a half times straight-time pay. Officials met with the employer, examining the company’s records, and taking statements from employees over the course of three years, the typical timeframe for civil penalty cases, according to John DuMont, director of the DOL’s Pittsburgh district office.
The department was able to establish that beginning in July 2018, four months after the company was incorporated, Everest had knowingly paid straight-time wages for tens of thousands of overtime hours, according to Mr. DuMont.
Dane Steffenson, Everest’s attorney in the case, said that the case was an example of overreach by the department. Mr. Steffenson was previously a DOL trial lawyer based out of the department’s Atlanta regional office and now specializes in employment litigation on the...
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