Sophia Serrao
Fri, 12/16/2022
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia has ruled in favor of home healthcare workers who alleged they had been underpaid due to falsified time records. The United States Department of Labor sued Kynd Hearts Home Healthcare LLC on behalf of its employees, alleging the company fabricated pay records and failed to consistently pay employees their overtime. DOL moved for summary judgment, arguing that the workers were owed overtime and that Kynd Hearts’ actions willfully deprived the workers of money they were owed.
The Court ruled in favor of the workers, finding clear overtime violations and concluding that Kynd Hearts violated overtime and recordkeeping laws by failing to properly pay the workers or keep adequate records of the employees’ time and pay. The Court found that, in some instances, Kynd Hearts reduced employees’ base pay rate, and calculated their overtime based on that improperly reduced rate. Modifying rates of pay when calculating overtime rates is a willful violation of the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA) which is the federal wage and hour law. Such a willful violation allowed the Court to order that the workers be paid their overtime dating back three years. The Court granted over $750,000 in backpay and $750,000 in liquidated damages to be paid to the employees for the period from September 8, 2017 through December 31, 2019. The workers may have additional claims for the period after December 13, 2019.
The case is Walsh v. Kynd Hearts Home Healthcare LL, et al., 2:30-cv-00630.
MSE represents workers who have not been properly paid by their employers, including home healthcare workers. For more information, visit https://www.mselaborlaw.com/resources/private-employees/dc-homecare-workers. If you think that your overtime rights have been violated, please contact MSE at info@mselaborlaw.com.
