The opening of a federal investigation into the pay practices of a Haslett assisted living facility in the fall of 2021 prompted its owner to threaten employees with termination if they spoke with investigators and trick them into admitting whether or not they had cooperated with the investigation, a US Department of Labor lawsuit filed on Feb. 3, 2023, alleges. Filed in the US District Court for Western District of Michigan, Southern Division in Grand Rapids, the department’s complaint alleges Safe Haven Assisting Living of Haslett LLC and its owner, Tamesha Porter, violated federal laws that protect workers from retaliation by threatening employees for their perceived cooperation with the department’s investigation into alleged violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The suit seeks a jury trial and the recovery of pay, and compensatory and punitive damages for the affected employee.
The suit follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division that revealed Porter responded to the agency’s review of 18 months of the firm’s pay practices by regularly making threats of termination and attempting to identify employees whom she suspected had cooperated with the investigation. The division also alleges Porter acted with hostility toward workers, ignored them, and refused to speak to them. Her retaliatory responses to the investigation led several employees to resign. Allegedly, Porter later contacted a prospective employer of one such employee and claimed that the employee had engaged in misconduct at Safe Haven.
