BATON ROUGE – A painter is suing his former employers over allegations that he was only paid straight time for overtime hours worked.
Hector Porto Mendez filed a complaint on Feb. 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana against Vargas LLC and Carlos Vargas alleging that they violated the Fair Labor Standards Act.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that between September 2016 and January 2017, he customarily worked an average of 48 to 54 hours per week without being paid overtime wages. Instead, he alleges he was paid his regular hourly rate, regardless of the number of hours he worked. The plaintiff holds Vargas LLC and Vargas responsible because the defendants allegedly failed to pay additional wages at the rate of one-and-one-half times his regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 per week.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks compensation for accumulated wages at overtime rate, liquidated damages, attorneys' fees, interest and for all costs of the proceeding. He is represented by Daniel B. Davis and Randall E. Estes of Estes Davis Law LLC in Baton Rouge.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana Case number 3:17-cv-00063