The U.S. 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.
“Care workers provide essential services to people in need in our communities and they deserve to be paid all of their earned wages,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director James Cain in Philadelphia. “Enforcement actions against employers like QualiT Healthcare help to ensure workers are paid as the law requires and remind other employers of the importance of compliance.”
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.
“The judgment we obtained will put significant amounts of money back in the pockets of hard-working care workers,” said Regional Solicitor Samantha Thomas in Philadelphia. “This case underscores the U.S. Department of Labor’s commitment to pursuing litigation when employers fail to comply with the law.”
The division’s Philadelphia District Office conducted the investigation and the department’s Office of the Solicitor in Philadelphia filed the district court complaint and motion to approve consent judgment.
The FLSA requires that most employees in the U.S. be paid at least the federal minimum wage for all hours worked and overtime pay at not less than time and one-half their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 in a workweek.