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“Minimum wages and overtime compensation must be paid on a current basis as work is done, such that an employee receives the prescribed compensation without delay. When an employer fails to pay those amounts, the employee suffers losses, which includes the loss of the use of that money during the period of delay,” the Court of Appeals wrote in its filing.
Edwards was sentenced to 10 years in prison in Nov. 2019 after he pleaded guilty to “one count of forced labor for coercing an African-American man with an intellectual disability to work extensive hours at a restaurant for no pay” for his abuse of Smith from 2009 to 2014, the Department of Justice announced in apress releaseat the time.
Horry County Sheriff’s Department
In the recent filing from the Court of Appeals, the judges wrote that Smith “has an intellectual disability and an IQ of 70.”
Smith initially began working at the restaurant in 1990 as a part-time dishwasher at 12 years old, but it had been under management of a different member of Edwards' family and was “always paid for his labor” until Edwards took over in Sept 2009, per the Court of Appeals.
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The J&J Cafeteria owner forced Smith to work more than 100 hours unpaid per week with no days off. Edwards threatened the employee with arrest, verbal abuse and physical abuse leaving Smith “physically and psychologically scarred,” the Court of Appeals wrote in the new ruling.
source: people.com
