MONROE – Employees of a Louisiana corporation that provides services to senior citizens recently filed a class action lawsuit claiming Community Care Services (CCS) doesn’t pay the workers for overtime.
Plaintiffs Monetta Wilson and Patronella Holmes, on behalf of themselves and other employees, filed the suit Sept. 10 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, Monroe Division.
Wilson and Holmes, and the similarly situated employees they seek to represent, are current and former employees who worked for CCS during the period of Sept. 10, 2015, to the present, the lawsuit said. Wilson was employed by CCS from 2006 until March 1, 2018, while Holmes was employed by CCS from 2008 to 2018, according to the suit.
The complaint said the plaintiffs’ primary duties as provider were all performed at the private homes of CCS’s clients and plaintiffs did not live with any of CCS’s clients.
“As a domestic service worker, plaintiffs regularly worked more than 40 hours per workweek,” the lawsuit stated. “In fact, a typical work schedule required plaintiffs to work more than 50-65 hours per week, with many weeks requiring them to work even more.”
According to the lawsuit, CCS’s policy was to pay “straight time” wages for all hours worked, regardless of whether or not a provider worked more than 40 hours in a workweek.
“CCS’s failure to pay plaintiffs and the class members overtime wages violates the overtime wage provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act,” the lawsuit stated. .
According to the complaint, CCS has the names and addresses of all class members in their records, but plaintiffs do not.
“The class members shouId be allowed to receive notice about this lawsuit and given an opportunity to join,” the suit stated. “Like plaintiffs, these similarly situated workers are entitled to recover their unpaid overtime wages, liquidated damages, attorneys' fees, and other damages.”
The plaintiffs said they were hired to work as providers for CCS, with CCS controlling the plaintiffs’ conditions of employment, including their pay rate, as well as the policies and procedures that they and the other class members were required to follow.
Because the employers’ time-keeping and wage policies are the same for all of its providers, CCS maintains a “common pay practice or policy” and the class members are similarly situated to plaintiffs, the lawsuit stated.
“Defendants’ domestic service employees all perform the same essential job functions and duties notwithstanding the fact that one employee might have more tenure, experience, receive a different hourly wage, or require less supervision than another employee in the same or similar position,” the complaint stated. “In this regard, the class members are similarly situated to plaintiffs.”
The plaintiffs said the exact amount of damages may vary among individual class members, but the damages for each individual can easily be calculated using the same methodology and formula.
The plaintiffs are seeking overtime wage compensation for all overtime hours worked, an equal amount as liquidated damages, reasonable and necessary attorneys' fees and costs.