Iowa City Facing FLSA Misclassification Lawsuit from Former EMS Director

The City of Eldora, Iowa is facing an FLSA misclassification lawsuit filed by the city’s former Director of Emergency Medical Services.  Plaintiff Maile Carter worked as the city’s EMS Director from March 2020 until leaving in August 2023. During that time Carter alleges that the city misclassified her and other presumably high-ranking city officials as overtime exempt employees.

According to the complaint, in recent months the city acknowledged that the city’s new EMS director [hired after Carter’s departure] and chief of police were misclassified and provided more than $48,000 in back pay to the two. Coincidently, the resolution passed by city officials authorizing those payments required “overtime back pay dating back to June of 2022” for both the new EMS director and police chief. However, the current EMS director was only employed in that capacity since August 2023.  Additionally, Carter claims that after discovering the misclassification error, she worked with city officials for several months trying to determine how much back pay she was owed. According to her calculations the amount was more than $95,000, however the city has failed to pay any of these back wages or overtime.

The timeframe in the complaint is important. The standard statute of limitations [look back] for FLSA claims is two or three years from the filing of the lawsuit. In layman’s terms, this means that if an employer rectifies an FLSA error, or if an employee leaves employment, the potential damage calculation gets smaller and smaller every payday. That is why plaintiff-sided FLSA attorneys move very quickly after accepting a case. It is imperative for the plaintiff’s attorney to reach an agreement with the plaintiff’s employer to extend the statute of limitations [a.k.a., tolling] or in the alternative file a lawsuit almost immediately. In fact, if the plaintiff’s attorney takes too much time in this stage of the “potential” litigation he or she could be liable for malpractice! 

Why is understanding this important? First, nobody likes getting sued [or potentially getting sued]. In fact, some people take that sort of action as a personal attack. Second, financial and legal decisions made by public employers often take time. That is understandable, most public officials cannot execute quick payments to an employee or former employee absent a significant amount of administrative and procedural hurdles. It is vitally important that professionals tasked with paying firefighters and other first responders understand the basic requirements of the FLSA and Department of Labor regulations. This will allow them to adequately identify liabilities and possibly even mitigate litigation.   

Here is more on the story from the Iowa Capital City Dispatch.