Ultimate Care 6 Million Settlement Over Home Care Aide Overtime and Unpaid Hours

Ultimate Care Inc. agreed to a $6 million class action settlement involving home health aides, personal care aides, and personal assistants who worked two or more 24-hour live-in shifts in a week between Dec. 12, 2016, and Dec. 12, 2025. These “24-hour” home care shifts are common in New York’s home care industry, where caregivers may remain in a client’s home around the clock, often with disputed expectations about whether meal periods and sleep time are truly uninterrupted—and therefore whether that time should be paid. The case sits in a broader landscape of wage-and-hour enforcement in a fast-growing sector that relies heavily on live-in staffing to meet aging and disability-care needs while keeping services cheaper than institutional care. The lawsuit was filed because the plaintiffs alleged Ultimate Care failed to pay legally required overtime and did not pay for all hours worked during 24-hour shifts, including time during meal breaks and sleep periods, and also raised claims tied to wage statements and “spread of hours” requirements under New York Labor Law. While Ultimate Care denied wrongdoing, settlements like this are significant because they can deliver back pay to a large group of workers through a single process and put pressure on employers to tighten timekeeping, payroll practices, and documentation for live-in assignments. Payments will be allocated on a pro rata basis based on the number of 24-hour shifts worked, reflecting how wage claims in this setting often hinge on the volume and structure of extended shifts rather than a single missed payment. More broadly, the dispute echoes a wave of home care overtime and off-the-clock cases, especially in New York, where litigation and regulatory guidance have repeatedly focused on when employers may exclude sleep and meal periods from pay on 24-hour shifts and what records and conditions are required to do so. The settlement also highlights industry-wide compliance challenges: home care agencies operate under tight reimbursement and staffing pressures, yet must still follow wage-and-hour rules such as overtime, accurate wage statements, and spread-of-hours pay, making class actions a frequent tool for resolving alleged systemic pay practices in the sector.