Dive Brief:
- A Pittsburgh nursing facility operation and its payroll office are on the hook for $35.8 million in back wages and damages to 6,000 current and former workers in what the U.S. Department of Labor in a statement Tuesday called one of the U.S.’s largest wage recoveries.
- Samuel Halper, CEO of Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services and its payroll office, CHMS Group, oversaw and implemented the illegal pay practices, DOL found in a July 22 judgment.
- The WHD found that management at 15 different nursing facilities “willfully” denied workers their wages for all hours worked, including during meal breaks, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Management also factored nondiscretionary bonuses and shift differentials into overtime pay calculations, among other violations.
Dive Insight:
Halper’s nursing homes skirted around “paying overtime by incorrectly treating employees as exempt from the [FLSA’s] overtime requirements,” DOL said. Moreover, the nursing home facilities and the payroll offices failed to keep “accurate” records of the hours employees worked and the compensation due therein.
Solicitor of Labor Seema Nanda called the Pennsylvania federal court’s judgment in this case “decisive and historic,” and a confirmation of “the Department of Labor’s position that the employers committed wage theft intentionally.”
Wage and Hour Administrator Jessica Looman condemned wage theft, particularly in the healthcare industry. “Far too often, our investigations find that workers who provide essential care services to those who need them most are not receiving their hard-earned wages from employers,” Looman said in the July 30 press release.
This is not the first time Halper and his nursing facilities have come under fire for talent management practices.
Previously, in 2022, the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Western District of Pennsylvania indicted two nursing facilities and five people “on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States.” Comprehensive Healthcare Management Services was one of the facilities named and the group of five individuals included Sam Halper.
The courts charged Halper, along with his former director of nursing, Eva Hamilton, with "with falsifying staffing sheets provided to the state Department of Health to create the appearance that the facilities were in compliance with Medicare and Medicaid requirements." The two were also charged with “falsifying, concealing or covering up by trick, scheme or device material” information related to administering or paying for healthcare benefits.
Halper was acquitted of the DOJ charges in December 2023, according to a media release posted on the site of Goodwin Procter LLP, which identified itself as his legal representation.
"The DOJ alleged that Mr. Halper was responsible for millions of dollars in losses, and he faced years of incarceration if he had been convicted," Goodwin attorneys wrote in the release. "Following a hard-fought trial which began on November 14th and concluded on December 18th, the jury acquitted Mr. Halper on all charges.”
