A federal court has directed a Fairfax home care agency and its owners to pay more than $1.6 million in back wages and liquidated damages to 202 home health aides in a consent judgment obtained by the US Department of Labor. The action by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia follows an investigation of 1st Adult & Pediatrics Healthcare Services Inc. by the department’s Wage and Hour Division that found the company and its owners, Carolyn Bryant-Taylor and Kafomdi Josephine Okocha, willfully denied the affected workers overtime wages by paying them straight-time rates of pay for all hours worked, including hours over 40 in a workweek. Investigators also learned the employers did not keep required payroll records, a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Despite the division’s findings, 1st Adult & Pediatrics Healthcare Services, Bryant-Taylor and Okocha refused to pay the back wages and damages owed to the workers. In September 2022, the department’s Office of the Regional Solicitor filed suit to recover the monies owed. The court’s judgment required the employers to pay $834,782 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages to the affected workers. They must also pay $48,675 in civil money penalties to the department for their intentional violations and must not violate the FLSA in the future.
