Caregiver Employment Lawyer
Sacramento Law Group LLP represents caregivers in employment lawsuits for unpaid wages, overtime, and sleep time. Our employment law attorney represents caregivers across California working in private homes and assisted living facilities. Our firm understands that many live-in caregivers effectively work 24-hour shifts, suffer financial hardship, and deserve compensation for their service. As a result, many cases require immediate action to secure recovery before defendants can hide assets and deny caregivers their legally entitled compensation. To learn more about your case and how our attorneys can help call Sacramento Law Group LLP for a phone consultation.
Overtime
California overtime law protects assisted living caregivers who work more than 8 hours a day and private in-home caregivers who work more than 9 hours a day. Furthermore, California labor laws pertaining to sleep time deductions often entitle caregivers to compensation for sleep time spent on the employer’s premises or client’s home. As a result of overtime laws, many California caregivers on 24-hour shifts who sleep on the premises have employment law claims worth tens of thousands of dollars.
Filipino Caregivers
Our employment law attorneys understand that Filipino caregivers are often victims of wage theft. In many 6-bed facilities and live-in assignments, Filipino caregivers are required to work 24-hour shifts while only being paid for 8 hours. Sometimes assisted living employers falsify time cards, while in others the employer claims the caregiver is ‘off duty’ even though they’re not allowed to leave the premises. Sadly, in many instances, the employer is also Filipino who utilizes the concept of utang na loob to rationalize unpaid overtime.
The truth is that many Filipino caregivers are victims of wage theft. However, California law generally favors caregivers in the traditional assisted living or live-in caregiver setting and empowers caregivers with considerable remedies for labor law violations. To learn more about your rights under California labor law call Sacramento Law Group LLP to schedule a free phone consultation.
In-Home Caregivers
If you work as a caregiver in a private home, Wage Order 15 or the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights protects your right to overtime pay, regardless of whether you have been paid minimum wage or any wages.
Live-in caregivers who spend more than 20% of their workday cooking, cleaning, or performing tasks other than personal care are entitled to overtime pay (1.5 x hourly wage or at least CA minimum wage) for hours worked over 9 in a day and for the first 9 hours worked on the sixth and seventh consecutive day in a workweek. (Wage Order 15).
Caregivers who do not live in the employer’s home or facility and spend more than 20% of their workday cooking, cleaning, or performing tasks other than personal care are entitled to overtime pay for hours worked over 8 in a day or 40 in a workweek; overtime pay for the first 8 hours on the seventh consecutive day in a workweek; and double time for hours worked over 12 in a day and in excess of 8 on the seventh consecutive day in a workweek. (Wage Order 15).
Caregivers who work in a private household and spend less than 20% of their day cooking, cleaning, or performing tasks other than personal care are entitled to overtime for hours worked over 9 in a workday and over 45 in a workweek.
Sleep Time
Many live-in caregivers are required to respond to the personal care needs of their employer or client on a 24-hour basis. For example, live-in caregivers are frequently required to wake up at night to provide incontinence care or toilet elderly clients. As a result, many live-in caregivers are entitled to compensation for on-call hours during their sleep time.
Caregiver Lawyer vs. Wage Claim
Some caregivers file wage claims with the State Labor Commissioner in an attempt to recover unpaid wages, overtime, and sleep time pay. Unfortunately, often after several critical months of delay from the Labor Commissioner, their wage claims are turned down due to defendant asset protection techniques, or worse, receive a judgment a year later only to find that the defendant has shut down, transferred assets to an entity or distributed trust assets, making the delayed judgment nearly worthless. In short, defendant asset protection techniques common in caregiver wage claims result in cases that are too “complex” for the overburdened State Labor Commissioner and weigh in favor of retaining a caregiver attorney to file a lawsuit.
Trusts, LLC’s, & Transferred Assets
Private in-home caregivers often find out that defendant assets such as real estate and bank accounts are held in a living trust. Likewise, some caregivers receive a judgment from the Labor Commissioner after significant delay only to find that the defendant transferred assets to a trust or beneficiaries. Caregivers in assisted living facilities find themselves suing LLCs or similar entities who own little and hold even less in liquid funds. In these cases, caregivers find after unfortunate delays that the Labor Commissioner is ill-equipped and painfully slow in pursuing these complicated cases involving alter ego liability, fraudulent conveyance, or similar techniques for securing recovery. In these cases, many caregivers are better off retaining an employment law attorney who specializes in caregiver cases early in the process.