The company found a creative way to pay overtime – without it actually costing more
A federal appeals court ruled on April 1 that third-party home care employers must pay overtime – and the DOL has the authority to make them.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit sided with the Department of Labor in an enforcement action against Americare Healthcare Services, Inc., and its owner, Dilli Adhikari, over unpaid overtime for home care workers in Ohio. The decision affirms that a 2013 DOL regulation stripping third-party employers of key overtime exemptions under the Fair Labor Standards Act remains valid – even after the Supreme Court rewrote the rules on agency power in 2024.
The case traces back to October 2021, when the DOL sued Americare for failing to properly compensate its home care workers between October 2018 and October 2021. Americare operates exclusively in Ohio, providing services to elderly or disabled clients through state Medicaid waiver programs. All of its workers are live-in caregivers, and between 95 and 99.9 percent of them are employed to care for their own family members. The company serves a specific population of Nepali Ohioans who, based on cultural and religious beliefs, are unlikely to accept care from anyone other than a close family member.
The record showed that from October 2018 to September 2019, Americare paid its workers a consistent hourly rate with no overtime. This happened despite the fact that at least one attorney had advised...
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