The US Department of Labor has secured a $400,000 consent judgment for violations of the overtime and recordkeeping requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by Heart II Heart LLC — a company providing adult community residential rehabilitation homes for individuals with disabilities in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The settlement follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) that found the employer misclassified all workers performing direct care as independent contractors. As a result, the employer failed to pay overtime to 99 employees when they worked more than 40 hours in a workweek, as required by law. WHD also found that the employer failed to maintain records of the number of hours employees worked. Following that investigation, the department’s Office of the Solicitor filed a lawsuit in US District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The court’s judgment orders Heart II Heart LLC and its owner, Toni Duncan, to pay $182,624 in back wages, and an equal amount in liquidated damages. WHD also assessed $34,752 in civil money penalties due to the willful nature of the violations. The court had previously granted summary judgment to the Department on several key issues, finding Heart II Heart LLC and Duncan violated the overtime and recordkeeping requirements of the FLSA.
