Our employment lawyers filed a Collective and Class Action Lawsuit against StoryPoint Senior Living (“StoryPoint”) in Ohio for failing to compensate its hourly and non-exempt employees fully for all time that they spent working.
On September 14, 2022, our overtime attorneys filed a Collective and Class Action Complaint against Defendant StoryPoint on behalf of hourly employees for the alleged failure of StoryPoint to compensate its hourly employees all overtime wages earned for all overtime work performed in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”). StoryPoint is a company that provides healthcare and services for senior citizens living in a collection of communities.
The Complaint alleges that StoryPoint required a daily 30-minute meal break deduction from its hourly employees’ compensable hours worked. However, this period of 30 minutes was alleged to be off the clock and/or deducted from hourly employees’ daily hours regardless of whether or not they actually received an uninterrupted 30-minute meal break (i.e., a period during which they are free from performing any work). Further, the Complaint additionally alleges that healthcare employees received bonuses, such as pickup shift bonuses, safety bonuses, and hazard pay (such as COVID-19 bonuses). Together, these “bonuses” should have been factored into hourly employees’ regular rates of pay for purposes of calculating each employee’s overtime rate of pay, but the Complaint alleges that they were not.
The FLSA requires an employer to pay employees for their work. If an employer is going to require a meal break deduction from its employees, then such break must be a “bona fide” meal break, which is described as follows:
- Bona fide meal periods are not worktime. Bona fide meal periods do not include coffee breaks or time for snacks. These are rest periods. The employee must be completely relieved from duty for the purposes of eating regular meals. Ordinarily 30 minutes or more is long enough for a bona fide meal period. A shorter period may be long enough under special conditions. The employee is not relieved if he is required to perform any duties, whether active or inactive, while eating.
This lawsuit provides an example of how an employer can violate the FLSA by not fully paying its employees all overtime wages earned for all overtime work that they perform. This unpaid time often results in unpaid overtime that adds up to considerable amounts over the course of an employee’s employment (within the relevant lookback period). The FLSA sets forth the minimum compensation that employees must be paid, and non-exempt hourly employees are entitled to receive full and proper compensation under the FLSA, including overtime.
The lawsuit seeks unpaid overtime wages since September 14, 2019, liquidated damages in an amount equal to the unpaid overtime, attorneys’ fees, and costs, among other things.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio, Eastern Division (Columbus) and is titled Jerei Williams v. Senior Village Management, LLC, et al., Case No. 2:22-cv-3420.
Additional information about the collective and class action against StoryPoint may be found by contacting our office by calling 614-949-1181 or emailing mcoffman@mcoffmanlegal.com. If you have any questions about whether you are being properly paid all overtime wages earned for all of the compensable hours you work (including overtime), then contact our office today to speak with our overtime lawyers regarding any wage and hour issues.
