An Ohio federal judge has ruled in favor of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) in a lawsuit accusing Americare Healthcare Services LLC and its owner, Dilli Adhikari, of violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by failing to pay overtime wages to home care aides. The court granted summary judgment, ordering the company to pay $15 million in unpaid wages and damages.
Judge Edmund A. Sargus made the ruling Thursday in the DOL’s October 2021 lawsuit. Adhikari argued that he had received legal advice from attorneys who told him overtime payments were not required for his home care aides, but he failed to provide supporting evidence or identify the attorneys. The judge acknowledged that Adhikari might have received conflicting legal advice, but concluded that by 2018, the company should have known it was violating the FLSA.
The DOL’s case dates back to a 2018 investigation by the Pennsylvania Department of Labor into Adhikari’s other agency’s pay practices. A class action had been filed over unpaid wages, prompting the agency to begin paying overtime wages. However, despite changes in Americare’s policies in 2019, the DOL argued that the company continued to violate the law by reducing aides’ hourly rates based on the number of hours worked, paying overtime on the lower rate, and thereby undermining the intent of the FLSA.
