An Indianapolis employer assigned home healthcare workers to shifts at two related companies but failed to combine the hours, denying them earned overtime pay when they worked more than 40 hours per week for the same employer. Under terms of a consent judgment, a federal court ordered Timothy Paul, owner of both Heal at Home LLC and TPS Caregiving LLC — operating as Comfort Keepers — to pay $215,859 in overtime back wages and an additional $216,938 in liquidated damages and interest to 171 workers. In the decision issued, Jan. 20, 2022, Judge Sarah Evans Barker also enjoined the employer from violating the Fair Labor Standards Act in the future. The US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found that the employer violated the FLSA when it issued workers separate checks at “straight time” for hours worked at each facility when it should have combined hours and paid overtime at time and one-half employee’s rate of pay when employees exceeded 40 hours a week.
