Unpaid Overtime Lawsuit Filed Against Arrow Senior Living Management
Coffman Legal’s FLSA Overtime Attorneys filed a Collective and Class Action Lawsuit against Arrow Senior Living Management, LLC (“Arrow”) in Ohio for failing to compensate its hourly and non-exempt healthcare employees fully for all time that they spent working.
On March 10, 2021, the law firm of Coffman Legal, LLC filed a Collective and Class Action Complaint against Defendant Arrow on behalf of healthcare employees for the alleged failure of Arrow Senior Living to compensate its healthcare employees for all overtime wages earned for all overtime work performed in violation of the Fair Labor Standard Act (“FLSA”).
Arrow is a company that provides healthcare and services for senior citizens living in a collection of communities in five total states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Ohio. The following are known facilities operated by Arrow:
(1) Illinois – Cedar Trails Senior Living;
(2) Indiana – Gentry Park Senior Living;
(3) Iowa – Journey Senior Living of Ankeny;
(4) Missouri – The Boulevard Senior Living at St Charles, The Boulevard Senior Living at Wentzville, The Castlewood Senior Living, The Fremont Senior Living, Kingsland Walk Senior Living, The Madison Senior Living, The Parkway Senior Living, The Princeton Senior Living, The Township Senior Living, The Westbury Senior Living, and The Wildwood Senior Living; and
(5) Ohio – Carriage Court Senior Living, Chestnut Hill Senior Living, Fox Run Senior Living, Hudson Grande Senior Living, The Kentridge Senior Living, Maple Ridge Senior Living, and Vitalia Active Adult Community / Senior Residences (with locations at Mentor, Montrose, Rockside, Solon, Stow, Strongsville, and Westlake).
These facilities are alleged to be owned and operated by Defendant.
The Complaint alleges that Defendant required a daily 30-minute meal break deduction from its healthcare employees’ compensable hours worked. However, this period of 30 minutes was alleged to be off-the-clock and/or deducted from healthcare employees’ daily hours regardless of whether or not they actually received an uninterrupted (free of any work) 30-minute meal break. Further, the Complaint additionally alleges that healthcare employees received bonuses, such as “sign-on” bonuses and nondiscretionary bonuses for working extra hours or shifts for which the employee was not scheduled to work. The “sign-on” bonuses, although referred to as such, are alleged to truly be retention bonuses, as they were not fully paid out to healthcare employees until they had reached a certain length of employment with Arrow. Together, these “bonuses” should have been factored into healthcare employees’ regular rates of pay for purposes of calculating what is each employee’s overtime rate, 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, then such meal break must be a bona fide meal period. A bona fide meal period under the law is 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 underpay its employees in violation of the FLSA by not fully paying them 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. The FLSA sets forth the minimum compensation 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 March 10, 2018, liquidated damages in an amount equal to the unpaid overtime, attorneys’ fees, and costs, among other things.
Additional information about the collective and class action against Arrow Senior Living 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.
