PA home care service ordered to pay over $1 million after ‘willful’ labor violations

( WJET/WFXP ) — A Pennsylvania home care agency has been ordered to pay up by a federal judge after an investigation by the United States Department of Labor (DOL) found they willfully didn’t pay overtime wages to nearly 160 workers among other violations.

Collingdale, PA home care agency Caring Hearts Health Care Services LLC will have to pay out over $1 million between overtime back wages, damages and penalties after investigators found workers were not being paid overtime wages after 40 hours in a workweek, paying them the same hourly rate, and didn’t accurately record how many hours employees worked.

Investigators called the violations willfully pointing to the handbook given to employees which said non-exempt employees “are entitled to overtime pay as required by applicable federal and state law.”

In total, Caring Hearts has been ordered to pay 159 employees $478,294 in back wages, a matching amount in liquidated damages, $97,459 in civil penalties for the willful violations and are barred from future Fair Labor Standards Act violations, bringing the grand total to $1,054,047.

“The Wage and Hour Division’s emphasis on rooting out wage theft in the home care industry has found yet another employer taking advantage of workers who provide vital services to people in need,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director James Cain in Philadelphia. “The hard-working people in this industry deserve respect and fair compensation. The Department of Labor is committed to enforcing labor standards to ensure workers receive the highest protections to which they are entitled.”

Caring Hearts provides daily living care, meal arrangement, medication management, dementia care and other medical disability support and safety supervision to clients in Philadelphia and Delaware counties.

Federal law requires employees to be paid at least the federal minimum wage for regular hours worked and overtime pay at not less than time and a half of their regular pay for any hours worked over 40 in total for the week.

The DOL also offers a search tool to see if you may be owed any back wages they collected through previous cases and can be found on their website here .

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