A federal judge has ordered a Chester home health-care agency to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in back wages and damages to current and former employees after the U.S. government accused the company of failing to compensate workers for overtime.
U.S. District Judge Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro signed that order in October after an investigation by the U.S. Labor Department found that QualiT Healthcare LLC, and its owner, Teajan Kamara, owed dozens of workers a total of $414,351 for violating overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, regulators said Monday.
From 2020 through 2023, QualiT Healthcare deliberately failed to pay overtime wages to more than 60 workers, the government said. Current and former employees were owed as little as $49.74, in one instance, and as much as $62,223.24, in another, according to court records.
The company paid employees hourly rates ranging between $12 and $15, the Labor Department said, and failed to pay them legally required overtime pay of at least 1½-times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours in a work week.
“Care workers provide essential services to people in need in our communities, and they deserve to be paid all of their earned wages,” James Cain, Philadelphia district director of the department’s wage and hour division, said in a statement. “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.”
QualiT Healthcare provides in-home services such as cooking and cleaning to senior citizens and people with disabilities, according to court records and the company’s website. Kamara, the company’s owner, declined to comment when reached by phone. An attorney for QualiT Healthcare didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In recent years inspectors for the Labor Department have found dozens of home health firms in Southeastern Pennsylvania that have failed to pay minimum wage or overtime. One reason: under state Medicaid rules, Pennsylvania doesn’t pay agencies extra for overtime — which is hard to avoid with a shortage of workers and increased demand for caregiving services.
» READ MORE: Philly-area home-care workers often get cheated on overtime. Pa.’s Medicaid rules don’t help.
Monday’s announcement came after acting Secretary of Labor Julie A. Su filed an enforcement action against the company in May. QualiT Healthcare reached a settlement agreement, known as a consent order, with the Labor Department in October to pay back wages and damages. The court ordered the company to pay $5,649 in civil penalties to the Labor Department.
The agreement also prohibits the company from violating the Fair Labor Standards Act in the future.
Prior to the filing of the judgment, QualiT Healthcare paid about $208,000 in back wages and damages, leaving a remainder of more than $206,000 to be paid to workers.
