A home care agency in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, will pay more than $4.5 million in back wages and damages to 503 home health aides after misclassifying them as independent contractors, according to the US Department of Labor. It was one of several announcements so far this week involving misclassification.

In the Upper Darby case, the department said a federal court granted summary judgment against Successful Aging Care Net Inc. and owner Innocent Onwubiko to pay the back wages and damages. The company must also pay $152,439 in civil penalties assessed for the willful nature of the violations.

Successful Aging Care paid straight time instead of time-and-a-half to misclassified aides when they worked more than 40 hours in a workweek, according to the department. The company also failed to pay overtime to properly classified employees and failed to compensate workers for time spent traveling between locations where their clients resided and did not maintain records of their travel times.

In other announcements this week:

• DRE Health Corp, which operates as DRE WorldMask USA Ltd., misclassified warehouse workers in Orange County, California, as independent contractors and will pay $158,096 in back wages and damages.
• Three Sarpino’s Pizzeria locations in Chicago are paying $188,628 in back wages and damages to 104 delivery drivers after they were misclassified as independent contractors, according to the department. In addition to the back wages recovered, the division assessed the operator of the three Sarpino’s Pizzerias $75,504 in penalties for violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, for the second time in six years. The division found similar FLSA violations in 2015.
• American Made Bags LLC in Akron, Ohio, is paying $189,756 in back wages and general damages to 48 employees, according to the department. It cited several illegal pay practices including misclassifying workers as independent contractors, failing to pay overtime and issues over maintaining wage records and paying back wages as agreed.