FORT MYERS – A wage violation suit against Carlisos Construction Inc. by a former employee has been dropped.
Thomas Maldonado abruptly pulled the plug on the suit he filed in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Dec. 5. In his petition, Maldonado alleged that he was routinely denied payment for overtime hours he regularly performed.
The suit directly named the company and presumed owner Jose L. Cabrera as defendants.
Maldonado was represented in the litigation by Peter and Samara Bober from the Hollywood-based firm of B&B P.A.
When contacted by the Florida Record, Peter Bober repeatedly responded the firm would have “no comment” on the most recent developments or why the suit was ended.
In his initial complaint, Maldonado alleged that he regularly worked more than 40 hours per week, but was never compensated for the extra hours, a blatant violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
Maldonado had been requesting a trial by jury, where he was seeking restitution for the unpaid hours he worked, liquidated damages and any other relief the court deemed appropriate. He was also requesting that Carlisos be held responsible for paying all his legal fees.
“The FSLA is the most basic wage and hourly law ever passed," Economic Policy Institute vice president Ross Eisenbrey told The Record of the nearly 80-year-old enactment. “The idea behind it was to spread work so people wouldn’t have to work such long hours. Back then, the typical work week was about 60 hours. The law doesn’t prohibit more than a 40-hour work week, but it requires that the worker be compensated at a rate of time one-half their regular wage.”
Tampa-based Carlisos bills itself as a general contracting operation specializing in single-family housing and sunroom construction. The company has been in business for roughly three years.
All Florida workers are shielded from wage theft in the form of unpaid overtime work by the federally mandated FSLA statute.
“Almost every hourly worker is covered by the law and in some cases so are salary workers,” Eisenbrey added. “Many tweaks have been made to it since its original enactment, most of them aimed at expanding its jurisdiction to include even more workers like those in the public sector.”
The law also requires that employees be paid at or above a stipulated minimum wage. In Florida, the state minimum wage is higher than the federally mandated rate and the state is generally considered to offer workers greater protections than even some federally mandated laws.
Peter Bober also declined to say when Maldonado left the company or if his departure was prompted by the legal actions he took against the company.
The veteran Bober previously served as mayor of Hollywood for eight years, leaving office in 2016. He specializes in the areas of civil litigation, employment law and personal injury law.
Calls to Carlisos for comment went unanswered.