San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu is taking a Bain Capital-backed home-care firm to court, accusing Arosa of shortchanging local care managers on overtime and basic breaks while they help keep the city's seniors afloat at home.
In a lawsuit filed this week, Chiu's office says Arosa has been illegally classifying its care managers as exempt employees, then working them past eight hours a day and into evenings, weekends and holidays without overtime pay. According to the complaint, managers are pushed to take on on-call shifts on top of their regular workload and receive only a flat salary for all of it. City lawyers argue that is bad for both workers' wallets and the quality of care for seniors across San Francisco.
The case was first reported by Local News Matters, which notes that the City Attorney's office says Arosa's care managers handle day-to-day client coordination and are routinely on the clock beyond a standard workweek, with those on-call duties treated as routine rather than rare emergencies.
What the suit alleges
"The home care industry is essential to our seniors and vulnerable residents, and yet, it is rife with exploitation," Chiu said in a press release, according to Local News Matters. The lawsuit claims Arosa wrongly labeled care managers as administrative staff even though their work includes visiting clients, scheduling shifts, coordinating care and helping with health-related needs.
According to the City Attorney's office, those tasks look a lot more like on-the-ground service work than high-level policy or management duties. That distinction matters because California's administrative exemption is reserved for employees whose main job is tied to management policies or general business operations and who regularly exercise significant discretion and independent judgment.
Private equity and care work
Arosa operates nationwide as a care management and in-home services provider and is part of the Arosa+LivHome platform, which grew following an investment by Bain Capital's impact arm, according to industry reporting. Home Health Care News documented the 2018 Bain Capital Double Impact deal that built Arosa's current footprint.
The lawsuit leans into a broader debate about private equity in care work, echoing labor advocates who say profit-focused ownership often translates into cost-cutting that can hit frontline staff hardest in pay and scheduling.
Chiu's push on worker misclassification
This case is the latest in a series of misclassification crackdowns from Chiu's office. Earlier this year, San Francisco secured a $4.5 million settlement in a misclassification case against staffing company WorkWhile, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. City officials say these actions are designed both to claw back wages for workers and to warn other employers off similar classification tactics.
Labor lawyers note that such cases can have an outsize impact in tight local labor markets, especially in home care, where workers are already in short supply and burnout is a constant risk.
Legal stakes for Arosa
Under California law, the administrative exemption applies only when an employee's primary duties are directly related to management policies or general business operations and the worker customarily and regularly exercises discretion and independent judgment. That standard is reflected in state regulations and court rulings. See California case law and wage orders on Justia for the governing test.
If the city proves misclassification, it can seek unpaid overtime, restitution and civil penalties. Those are the same categories of relief Chiu's office pursued in its recent enforcement action against WorkWhile, according to the San Francisco City Attorney's Office.
The Arosa complaint was filed this week and will move through initial court procedures in the coming months. As of today, Arosa had not posted a public response to the lawsuit, and the City Attorney's office had not released additional filings.
