PHILADELPHIA – A new class action lawsuit accuses a therapeutic professional staffing agency and its owners of violating the Pennsylvania Wage Payment and Collection Law (WPCL) by allegedly not paying full commissions to their sales representatives.
Colleen Lidstone of Chester County and Alice M. Forsythe of Montgomery County filed suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas on Oct. 25 versus Therapy Source, Inc., Joshua Cartagenova and Stacey Cartagenova, all of Montgomery County.
Lidstone and Forsythe say in their lawsuit that they are members of the class they seek to represent because they worked at Therapy Source as sales representatives since April 2010 and October 2005, respectively.
The suit says upon their employment beginning, each plaintiff was provided a document titled “Schedule A-Benefits & Compensation”, which outlined the terms and conditions by which sales commissions will be paid to sales representatives – and further contained the method by which sales commissions for the upcoming year would be calculated.
“During this time, they were not paid their full commissions which accrued from year-to-year at the same percentage rate defendants had previously agreed to in the applicable ‘Schedule A-Benefits & Compensation’ which triggered and cemented that particular percentage from the first year the client [was] secured and which could not and was not retroactively reduced,” the suit reads.
“However, despite their legal obligations, defendants continued to recalculate these commissions retroactively by willfully applying the calculations in a later and irrelevant ‘Schedule A-Benefits & Compensation.’ As stated, ‘Schedule A-Benefits & Compensation could not be retroactively applied to miscalculate downward, commissions which had been previously been earned at a higher percentage and which continued to accrue at that percentage.”
According to the plaintiffs, the defendants deliberately violated the WPCL by altering these commissions terms agreements – allegedly causing economic harm to each of the approximately 50 sales representatives employed during the relevant time period.
For allegedly violating of the WPCL, the plaintiffs are seeking the following damages: An order certifying the suit as a class action and designating Kolman Ely as class counsel; judgment in the plaintiffs’ favor; an order awarding Lidstone, Forsythe and the class members all compensatory damages, unpaid wages and pre-judgment interest; an order requiring the defendants to reimburse Lidstone, Forsythe and the class members for attorney’s fees and litigation costs; an injunction prohibiting the defendants from engaging in future violations of the WPCL on this basis; an order awarding Lidstone, Forsythe and the class members any further relief the Court deems necessary, just and proper; and an order maintaining jurisdiction over this action after judgment or verdict to ensure defendant’s compliance with the foregoing, in addition to a trial by jury.
The plaintiffs are represented by Timothy M. Kolman of Kolman Ely, in Penndel.
Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas case 171003423
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nickpennrecord@gmail.com