The US Department of Labor announced that a federal court has entered a default judgment against an Aliquippa home health provider and its owner, after an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found the employer denied 23 home health aides overtime wages. On Jan. 9, 2023, the US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania ordered Lucky’s Home Care LLC and owner Cheryl McMiller to pay $142,634 in overtime back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages following litigation by the department. Additionally, the judgment permanently forbids the employer from violating the Fair Labor Standards Act in the future.
The action comes after the division’s investigation of the employer’s pay practices that determined the employers did not pay the required overtime premium to the affected employees for hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek. Instead, Lucky’s Home Care and McMiller paid straight-time hourly rates for overtime hours worked. While the employer occasionally paid some workers the overtime premium, they capped the number of hours for which the employees could earn overtime wages, and then reverted back to paying straight-time hourly rates for hours worked over the cap. These actions willfully violated the FLSA and led the department to assess a $21,528 civil money penalty that the employer paid.
