The US Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgment in federal court that requires a Philadelphia home healthcare agency and its owner to pay approximately $1.6 million in back wages and liquidated damages to 288 workers deliberately denied overtime pay. The consent judgment follows a complaint filed by the department’s Office of the Solicitor on Feb. 21, 2023, against Aging with Care Inc. and owner Amber Haq. An investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found the employers did the following:
- Paid home health aides their regular rates of pay for all hours worked, failing to pay overtime when required.
- Failed to combine hours between multiple clients for overtime calculation purposes.
- Did not pay home health aides for time spent traveling between clients’ homes in the same workday.
- Maintained inaccurate records of hours worked due to not tracking hours for travel time.
- Failed to keep payroll records for part of the period of investigation.
In addition to recovering $823,265 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages, the judgment — entered in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia — requires Aging with Care Inc. and Haq to pay a $56,218 civil money penalty assessed by the division for the willful nature of the employers’ violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The court also enjoined the employers from violating the FLSA in the future.
