Ex-Premier Senior Living Employee Claims Salaried Workers Denied Overtime for Non-Exempt Work

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A proposed class and collective action claims Premier Senior Living, LLC has misclassified salespeople, directors and administrators as exempt from overtime wages despite requiring them to perform a significant amount of non-exempt work.

According to the 14-page case, although salespeople, administrators and directors (including maintenance, dietary, business and wellness directors) put in more than 40 hours per week and performed many of the same tasks as non-OT-exempt hourly employees, they were not paid time-and-a-half overtime wages.

The suit claims Premier Senior Living’s apparent failure to adequately staff each location is the reason why salespeople, administrators and directors at the defendant’s 16 residential senior living facilities were required to undertake duties that should have been performed by non-exempt employees. According to the case, the salaried workers spent most, if not all, of their time doing the same tasks as hourly workers, including the following positions and duties:

• Dietary aids – passing meals, cleaning and prepping the kitchen and preparing food;
• Housekeeping aids – cleaning the building, bathrooms, common areas, resident rooms and the kitchen;
• Personal care aids – assisting with residents’ personal hygiene, including showering, toileting and dressing them;
• Activities aids – overseeing group and one-on-one recreational activities;
• Medical technicians – ordering and distributing medication;
• Licensed practical nurses – administering medications; and
• Maintenance – snow removal, replacing light bulbs, caulking, plumbing and painting.

The lawsuit alleges that because salaried workers spent a substantial amount of time, if not all of their time, performing the above-listed non-exempt tasks, they should have been properly classified as non-exempt employees and received premium pay for the hours they worked beyond 40 each week. Per the case, the defendant misclassified the workers as exempt in order to skirt federal and state labor laws and avoid paying overtime.

The plaintiff, who was employed as a salesperson at Premier Senior Living’s Seneca Lake Terrace facility in Geneva, New York before being terminated in April 2021, says she typically worked 60 to 70 hours on premises each week plus 15 to 20 hours from home on her personal cell phone. Per the case, the plaintiff’s primary duties as a salesperson were to show potential residents around the facility and place new residents there. The suit alleges, however, that the plaintiff spent a substantial amount of time performing other tasks that were normally performed by hourly employees, including the aforementioned duties. The case moreover claims that the plaintiff was required to learn the “Med Pass” protocol on her own without the typical 40 hours of training for distributing medicine.

The plaintiff alleges the defendant employed a similar practice at its other facilities, which she claims to have observed firsthand while working for roughly a month at Premier Senior Living’s Olean, New York facility and performing only non-exempt tasks.

The lawsuit looks to cover current and former salespeople, directors and administrators who worked for the defendant within the statutory period and elect to opt in to this action, as well as those who worked for the defendant in New York.

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