A federal court has ordered an Upper Darby home healthcare agency to pay $4,544,872 in back wages and liquidated damages after US Department of Labor investigators found that the employer misclassified some workers as independent contractors, which denied 503 home health aides their rightfully earned overtime wages. Following litigation of the case by the department’s Office of the Solicitor, the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania entered a consent judgment on March 4 that requires Successful Aging Care Net Inc. and its owner Innocent Onwubiko to pay $2,272,436 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to the affected workers. The court granted summary judgment to the department on several key issues previously, including finding Successful Aging and Onwubiko liable for overtime and recordkeeping violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Separate from the consent judgment, the employer — operating as Successful Aging — must also pay $152,439 in civil money penalties the department assessed for the willful nature of the violations. Investigators with Wage and Hour Division found that Successful Aging paid straight time instead of time-and-a-half to the misclassified aides for hours over 40 in a workweek. The employer also failed to pay overtime to other properly classified employees, both FLSA violations. Additionally, the employer failed to compensate workers for time spent traveling between locations where their clients resided and did not maintain records of their travel time. Following the investigation, the solicitor’s office filed the lawsuit against Successful Aging and Onwubiko.
