Beyond Hospice: Home Health Agencies Plagued by UPICs and SMRCs
A major change in Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) wage and hour jurisprudence has taken place, with BakerHostetler at the helm. In Clark, et al. v. A&L Home Care & Training Center, the Southern District of Ohio conditionally...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”), through its Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”), has been intensifying its pursuit of Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) violations by residential care facilities, nursing facilities, home...more
Eleventh-Hour Trump Administration FLSA Classification Rule Revived- Just when residential healthcare employers thought it was safe to get back into the classification waters, a late-stage Trump administration rule,...more
Welcome to a special edition of our Healthcare Snapshot – this time with a Florida focus. We’re taking a deeper dive and examining how the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is focusing on whether home healthcare employees are...more
In a stunningly broad ruling that should send shivers down the spine of every home healthcare agency that uses an independent contractor workforce, a Florida federal court ruled on April 12 that a home healthcare worker who...more
On November 23, 2021, the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division announced an education, outreach and enforcement initiative to ensure employers pay professional caregivers minimum wage and overtime in accordance with...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) issued two Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) opinion letters on December 31, 2020. One of those letters addresses travel time that occurs when employees schedule personal appointments during...more
As our family continues to practice social distancing, we are always on the lookout for a new comedy series to take a bit of the bite out of this new normal. We found exactly that in the FX series What We Do in the Shadows, a...more
Plaintiffs’ wage-and-hour class action lawyers are constantly looking for new groups of employees whom they can claim are inappropriately classified as exempt. In previous decades, plaintiffs’ lawyers focused on mortgage...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The DOL issued an opinion letter approving a pay model where an employer in the home health field payed its employees at an hourly rate for time spent with patients without additional hourly pay for time...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Department of Labor Acting Administrator Bryan Jarrett issued Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2018-4 (“FAB”) on July 13, to guide Wage & Hour Division (“WHD”) field investigators on how to determine whether...more
On July 13, 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a Field Assistance Bulletin (“FAB”) to provide guidance to field-office staff regarding whether caregivers, such as nurses and health aides, qualify under the Fair...more
On July 13, 2018, the acting administrator for the United States Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (WHD) issued Field Assistance Bulletin (FAB) 2018-4 to assist field staff in determining when home care, nurse, or...more
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on July 13, 2018, issued a Field Assistance Bulletin to its enforcement administrators, explaining how to determine if and when caregiver and nurse registries should be deemed employers...more
It is hard to believe that it has been three years now since the federal Fair Labor Standards Act’s (FLSA) “companionship” exemption was strictly limited to direct-hire caregivers engaged in a narrower scope of activities,...more
A recent federal court decision has added to the confusion surrounding the application of the U.S. Department of Labor's (DOL) "home care" overtime rule and New York's "13-hour" rule regarding compensable work hours for...more
As we reported earlier this month, the New York State Department of Labor (“NYDOL”) issued an amendment, effective October 6, to its Minimum Wage Order for Miscellaneous Industries and Occupations to clarify that bona fide...more
Citing the need “to preserve the status quo, prevent the collapse of the home healthcare industry, and avoid institutionalizing patients who could be cared for at home,” the New York Department of Labor (NYDOL) has issued...more
As we recently reported, on October 6, 2017, the New York State Department of Labor (“NYDOL”) issued an amendment to its Minimum Wage Order for Miscellaneous Industries and Occupations regulation to clarify that bona fide...more
As previously discussed, recent decisions from the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, found a New York State Department of Labor (“NYDOL”) opinion letter was not a “rational or reasonable” interpretation of New York...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Effective October 6, 2017, the New York Department of Labor issued an emergency regulation amending the Miscellaneous Minimum Wage Order, which is designed to undermine two recent Appellate Division rulings...more
On October 6, 2017, the New York State Department of Labor (“NYDOL”) issued an amendment to its Minimum Wage Order for Miscellaneous Industries and Occupations (“Wage Order”) in response to recent court decisions finding that...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department (“Second Department”) joined the First Department in finding that home healthcare employees who work 24-hour...more
A pair of New York state appellate decisions has serious implications for employers that offer 24-hour home care for clients by ruling that sleep and meal periods must be included in the hourly wages of home care attendants....more
In a case with far reaching implications, Cowell v. Utopia Home Care, Inc., 2:14-cv-00736-LDW-SIL, Magistrate Judge Steven Locke of the Eastern District of New York (covering Brooklyn, Queens and Long island) ruled that...more