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Mom and daughter owe $2.4M after shorting health care workers overtime pay, feds say

Charlotte Observer - 8/23/2022

A mom and her daughter owe more than $2.4 million after a federal judge in Pennsylvania found they were allegedly shorting home health care workers out of earned overtime pay.

Authorities say they did so by disguising the true number of hours that employees worked each week.

To do this, the mother and daughter duo split worker hours into two different companies’ paychecks, according to an Aug. 23 news release from the U.S. Department of Labor.

Anna Zaydenberg owns franchise Elder Resource Management Inc., which operates as ComForCare Home Care, while her daughter Marsha Simonds owns Staff Source.

The defense attorney representing Zaydenberg, Simonds and their two companies did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for comment on Aug. 23.

All 345 affected workers were employed by Elder Resource Management (ERM) and hired to work for ComForCare Home Care, according to a complaint filed May 10, 2019. They were to provide “daily living assistance and home healthcare in the Pittsburgh area.”

Each employee reported their hours worked to ERM, but authorities say the mom and daughter would manipulate payrolls by splitting their hours between ERM and Staff Source. The health care workers would then get a separate paycheck from each company.

“In dividing the employees’ hours between two paychecks, Defendants frequently attributed less than 40 hours per workweek to both paychecks and paid straight time pay for all hours worked, despite the fact that — as indicated by the total hours on both paychecks — the employees worked more than 40 hours total during the workweek,” Department of Labor attorneys stated in the complaint. “Employees frequently worked 50, 60, or even 70 or more hours in a workweek.”

When the workers did get time-and-a-half overtime pay, authorities say they were still shorted because it wasn’t based on their actual hours worked.

This occurred from at least Nov. 12, 2015, though June 24, 2017, according to court records.

Staff Source’s primary purpose as a company was to serve ERM by providing employee paychecks for some hours worked, according to court records.

“While ComForCare workers delivered essential round-the-clock, daily living assistance to people in need, the companies went to great lengths to deny these workers their hard-earned overtime wages,” Principal Deputy Wage and Hour Division Administrator Jessica Looman said in a statement. “The U.S. Department of Labor works diligently to prevent employers like these from harming workers and their families. Their actions were illegal and unconscionable.”

After a three-day court trial, on Aug. 5, Judge Christy Criswell Weigand of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania found Zaydenberg and Simonds — and their companies — liable for $1,242,146 in back wages and $1,242,146 in liquidated damages. They were also fined $434,268 in civil money penalties.

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