A federal judge has ordered four interrelated Upper Marlboro providers of assisted living, adult day care, and transportation services to pay $364,604 — $182,302 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages — to 132 workers after the US Department of Labor found numerous pay practice infractions in a Wage and Hour Division investigation. Specifically, investigators found Woodmore House Assisted Living Inc., We Care Adult Day Care Services Inc., Quality Connection Transportation Inc., GTerryD LLC and owners and officers Denson Terry, Gwen Terry, and David Douglas violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by doing the following:
- Failing to combine hours and pay appropriate overtime premiums to workers who clocked in and out of the different businesses while performing similar duties.
- Not paying workers for all hours worked.
- Manually adjusting timecards to omit hours, and rounding down employees’ worked hours.
- Making improper payroll deductions, which dropped workers’ pay rates below the minimum wage.
- Paying workers for overtime hours at straight time, instead of time and one-half their required pay rates.
The court’s action resolves violations of the FLSA’s minimum wage, overtime and recordkeeping requirements that followed the investigation and litigation by the department that obtained a consent judgment. In addition to the back wages and liquidated damages, the companies and their owners must also pay $34,430 in civil money penalties due to the willful nature of their violations. Entered in the US District Court for the District of Maryland Southern Division, the judgment also permanently enjoins the companies and their owners from future FLSA minimum wage, overtime and recordkeeping violations and prohibits them from discharging or taking retaliatory action against employees exercising their FLSA rights.
