The US Department of Labor has obtained a consent judgment against a home healthcare agency and its owner, Teajan Kamara, who had deliberately failed to pay employees their legally earned overtime wages. Following a filing by the department’s Office of the Solicitor in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, the judgment confirms the findings of an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division that determined QualiT Healthcare LLC owed the affected workers $414,351 in back wages and liquidated damages for violating overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The court also ordered the agency and its owner to pay a $5,649 civil money penalty for the willful nature of the violations. Before the department sought the consent judgment, QualiT Healthcare had paid $198,591 in back wages and $9,341 in liquidated damages to the affected workers. The employer must now pay the remaining balance of $212,067 in back wages and liquidated damages to the workers, and the civil penalties to the department.
