Department of Labor obtains judgment ordering Arizona contractor to pay $1.7M after defrauding drywall workers of wages owed

PHOENIX – The U.S. Department of Labor has obtained a judgment in federal court ordering a drywall contractor in Arizona to pay more than $1.7 million in back wages and damages to 246 workers.

The action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona follows an investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division finding Bean Drywall Inc., a residential drywall contractor, paid the affected workers either straight-time rates or piece rates for all hours worked but failed to pay employees overtime rates required by the Fair Labor Standards Act.

“Bean Drywall used fraudulent practices to disguise the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars in wages earned by hundreds of employees,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Eric Murray in Phoenix. “This employer’s willful and deceitful acts were designed to cover-up their inexcusable behavior.”

In addition to requiring Bean Drywall to pay $875,000 in back wages and an equal amount in liquidated damages, the judgment affirms $25,000 in civil money penalties the department assessed for the employer’s willful violations and forbids the contractor from future FLSA violations.

“Unfortunately, our investigations too often find construction employers engaged in illegal schemes to deny workers their hard-earned wages, obstruct enforcement agencies and gain an unfair advantage over their law-abiding competitors,” Murray added. “Since 2019, the Wage and Hour Division has recovered millions of dollars in back wages and damages owed to thousands of Arizona’s construction industry workers.”

Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division and how to file an online complaint. For confidential compliance assistance, employees and employers can call the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243), regardless of where they are from. The division can speak with callers in more than 200 languages.

Download the agency’s new Timesheet App for iOS and Android devices – available in English and Spanish – to ensure hours and pay are accurate.

Su v. Bean Drywall, Inc., Michael N. Bean, Michael Lee Sell, Heidi McBroom