LeadingAge NY Intervenes in Home Care Wage Case

A New York State appellate court has agreed to allow LeadingAge New York and two other associations to intervene as amici curaie (“friend of the court”) in Andryeyeva v. NY Home Attendant Agency, a lawsuit involving pay requirements for home care workers providing 24-hour live-in home care. LeadingAge NY, the Home Care Association of New York State, and the Home Care Association of America jointly filed the amicus brief on Sept. 24, 2015.

In the Andryeyeva case, NYS Supreme Court (Kings County) ruled that home care workers must be paid for every hour of a 24-hour sleep-in shift, and each hour of the 24-hour sleep-in shift is to be counted toward overtime, regardless of whether the home care worker had sleep or meal breaks. If this ruling is allowed to stand – as was argued in our amicus brief – the impact to wage and administrative costs will be unsustainable to affected home care providers and could also adversely affect managed care plans. There is also the potential for a lack of continuity of care for patients as well as concerns about access to 24-hour services in the future.  

As we previously reported, the court’s ruling is in opposition to current practice and NYS Department of Labor (DOL) interpretation of the wage order. The DOL interpretation is that third-party employers of 24-hour home care workers can pay their workers for 13 hours of a 24-hour shift, if the home care workers have eight hours of sleep, five of which are uninterrupted, and three uninterrupted hours for meals. If the home care worker time is interrupted then the employer must pay for that time.

LeadingAge NY will be conducting a legal update on this case along with other pending State lawsuits on Oct. 22, 2015. More information on this audio conference will be forthcoming, but please save the date.

We will keep members updated on further developments.

Contact: Dan Heim, dheim@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8866 or Cheryl Udell, cudell@leadingageny.org, 518-867-8871