Home Health Care Workers Lawsuit Leads to $1.9M Sanction

A health care company has been hit with a $1.9 million sanction for failure to comply with an ongoing home health care workers lawsuit.

The U.S. Department of Labor hit Caring First Inc. with a wage and hour overtime lawsuit regarding the pay of its nurses. According to the judge’s sanction order against Caring First, the company has failed to comply with orders to provide copies of certain payroll records relevant to the home health care workers lawsuit.

The judge, U.S. District Judge Carlos E. Mendoza, said that this failure is a “consistent theme” throughout the whole process. As a result, the U.S. Department of Labor was awarded a default judgment.

How did the sanction come about in the first place? Judge Mendoza found that Caring First had destroyed its weekly payroll records that were essential to the home health care workers lawsuit. In response, Mendoza asked for the relevant paychecks—either from the company or from its bank—by Nov. 3. The company failed to subpoena Wells Fargo for record of the paychecks, despite trying several times. This utter failure to subpoena the bank astonished the judge.

“Such conduct amounts to a blatant disregard of this court’s orders by defendants and their counsel,” the judge said. “While defendants did apologize for their wholly unsatisfactory attempt to comply with the court’s fourth order requiring producing of these records, the words of an oft-quote philosopher come to mind, ‘Do. Or do not. There is no try,’” the judge said, quoting Yoda.

When the deadline wasn’t met, Judge Mendoza came to his decision to make a default judgment. The judge ordered Caring First to pay close to $2 million in combined back wages and liquidated damages.

Wage and Hour Regulations

There are a series of both federal and state wage and hour laws put in place to protect workers and ensure they are treated fairly. However, many workers across the country do not know about the protections that the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) offers, which can lead to employers taking advantage of them. In some cases, employers may be requiring unpaid overtime work or even failing to pay minimum wage at all.

Some workers may find themselves unable to file wage and hour complaints like this unpaid overtime lawsuit because they are not aware of FLSA rules. Others may be afraid that their employers will retaliate or even fire them if they speak up about these kinds of FLSA violations. To protect workers who help to enforce FLSA rules, laws also exist to protect workers from discrimination based on wage and hour complaints.

Pursuing a Wage and Hour Lawsuit

If you have worked for an employer that may have failed to follow the Fair Labor Standards Act or state labor laws, such as minimum wage or overtime requirements, you may be able to either join a wage and hour class action lawsuit or file an unpaid overtime lawsuit of your own. An overtime pay settlement can help make up for unpaid wages or overtime work, whether you are a current or former employee.

Join a Free Wage & Hour Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you were forced to work off the clock or without overtime pay within the past 3 years, you have rights – and you don’t have to take on the company alone.

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