New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has settled a lawsuit against a Brooklyn-based home health care agency for failing to pay overtime wages to its home health care attendants. The lawsuit had alleged that Special Touch and its owner Steven Ostrovsky had failed to pay over $3 million in such wages to over 2,000 workers over a six-year period going back to 1998.
According to the lawsuit, home health care attendants employed by Special Touch typically worked between 50 to 60 hours for an average wage rate of $6.50 per hour, without any enhanced rate as required by New York State law for hours worked over forty. These workers were entitled to additional compensation for overtime hours, with the amount dependent upon the applicable minimum wage.
Under the settlement agreement an audit will be performed to determine the exact amount of unpaid overtime based on one and one-half times the minimum wage rate. The Attorney Generals office estimates that at least $3,000,000.00 will be paid to the workers for the six year period prior to the filing of the lawsuit, which covers the entire period allowed by the statue of limitations.
The settlement also takes into account the possible impact of a recent federal appellate court decision Coke v. Long Island Care at Home, that holds that home health care aides are entitled to an overtime rate of time and one-half of their regular hourly rate. Special Touch will put into escrow all additional monies that will be owed to the workers if the Coke decision stands upon further appeal.
"Todays agreement will provide thousands of home health care aides who been employed by Special Touch since 1998 with the legally required overtime pay that they earned working long hours taking care of the ill and convalescent," Spitzer said.
"While we recognize home health care agencies face some difficulty interpreting the complicated federal and state wage and hour laws applicable in this industry, home health care aides must be provided the overtime premium that is afforded to them under state law."
