An assisted living/memory care operator is on the hook for almost $32,000 in back wages and damages for retaliating against an employee for questioning the company’s pay practices and for denying full overtime wages to seven other workers.
After an investigation by the Wage and Hour Division, the US Department of Labor announced Friday that it had recovered $31,761 in back wages and damages from Family First LLC, which operates as Bailey Manor.
The company operates five assisted living/memory care communities under the Bailey Manor name in Tennessee — in Chattanooga, Cookeville, Fayetteville, Manchester and Winchester.
The government recovered $30,000 in back wages and damages for Franklin Lee Bennett, whose employment was illegally terminated, and $1,761 in back wages and damages for seven other employees, at the Manchester location. Investigators determined that Bailey Manor did not include pay for the time that employees spent on-call when calculating overtime wages for the Manchester employees, which is a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
According to the DOL, Bennett worked for Family First in Manchester, a job that sometimes required overtime work. When Bennett questioned the company’s pay practices and asked to be compensated for the overtime he worked, his supervisor allegedly threatened to fire him. Bennett was fired a few weeks later, and the company told investigators that Bennett was “unable to maintain a harmonious working relationship” with his supervisor and had an “argumentative attitude,” the DOL reported.
“The Wage and Hour Division will not tolerate employers that intimate or retaliate against workers or deprive them of their legally earned wages,” Lisa Kelly, Wage and Hour Division district director in Nashville, TN, said in a statement. “In addition to protecting workers’ wages, federal law forbids employers from taking action against employees because they engage in protected activities, such as asking about their pay, filing a complaint or cooperating with a US Department of Labor investigation.”
Bailey Manor had not responded to a request for comment from McKnight’s Senior Living by the production deadline.
