A wage lawsuit against the company that handles paychecks for New York’s largest home-care program has produced one of the bigger settlement funds to touch the state’s caregiver workforce this year. The people it covers are not a distant industry: many of them are family members and neighbors who get paid through New York’s Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program to care for an aging relative, exactly the kind of arrangement an older New Yorker or a family caring for one may already be part of. Whether the money actually moves still depends on a single hearing date still two months away.
A $162 Million Fund, Four Counties, One Fiscal Intermediary
The case, Calderon et al. v. Public Partnerships, LLC, covers roughly 200,000 personal assistants who provided services through Public Partnerships LLC, known as PPL, the statewide fiscal intermediary for the Consumer Directed Personal Assistance Program, in New York City, Nassau, Suffolk and Westchester counties between March 1, 2025 and April 30, 2026, according to class counsel’s case summary posted by Katz Banks Kumin LLP. The settlement fund totals at least $162 million, the same source states, covering wage claims tied to how those personal assistants were paid during that 14-month window. PPL processes payroll for personal assistants hired directly by Medicaid recipients under CDPAP, which lets a consumer choose almost anyone, including an adult child or other relative, to serve as a paid caregiver rather than using an agency-assigned aide.
Spread evenly across the roughly 200,000 personal assistants the settlement covers, the at-least-$162 million fund works out to a per-worker average above $800, though the actual distribution to any individual class member will depend on hours worked and pay records during the 14-month class period rather than an equal split. That structure is typical of a wage-and-hour class settlement, where the total fund reflects the aggregate underpayment claim rather than a flat amount owed to every worker regardless of how much they worked.
Before the Nov. 10 hearing arrives: A wage settlement large enough to name four counties and 200,000 personal assistants is exactly the kind of case that draws a copycat notice or an unsolicited call asking a class member to confirm personal details before the court has even signed off. The Settlement & Refund Recovery System’s four-date rule sorts a real Calderon notice from an imitation.
A Settlement Still Waiting On One Court Date
The settlement received preliminary approval on July 1, 2026, and notices describing it went out to class members around July 21, 2026, according to the case timeline posted on the official settlement website, PublicPartnershipsSettlement.com, which is administered by Atticus Administration. That same site sets the final approval hearing for November 10, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, case number 1:25-cv-02320. Until that hearing happens and the court signs off, the settlement is not final: preliminary approval lets the notice and objection process run, but it does not by itself authorize any payment to go out. Katz Banks Kumin LLP’s own case summary describes the settlement as not final “until after that notice period and final approval by the Court, which will require a number of months to complete,” language that matches the roughly four-month gap between the July notice mailing and the November hearing date.
That four-month gap is itself a normal feature of large wage-and-hour class settlements rather than a sign anything is delayed: it gives class members time to read the notice, decide whether to object or exclude themselves, and gives the court time to review any objections before signing off on a fund covering a class this size. A personal assistant who received a notice in July and has heard nothing since should not read that silence as the settlement having stalled; the case timeline itself calls for months to pass between notice and the final hearing.
Why The Case Targets The Payroll Administrator
The lawsuit was brought against PPL specifically, not New York State or the individual consumers who employ CDPAP personal assistants, because PPL is the company both plaintiffs’ firms — Katz Banks Kumin LLP and The Legal Aid Society — identify as responsible for how those personal assistants were paid. PPL became the state’s sole CDPAP fiscal intermediary in 2025 after New York consolidated dozens of regional intermediaries into one statewide contract, a shift that put an unusually large share of the state’s home care payroll under a single company at once. That consolidation is part of why a single wage dispute can now cover roughly 200,000 workers across four downstate counties rather than a smaller group tied to one regional agency.
For an older New Yorker receiving CDPAP care, or a family member being paid to provide it, the case is a reminder that the fiscal intermediary handling payroll, not the Medicaid recipient who selected the caregiver, is the party legally responsible for how wages are calculated and paid. The consumer who directs their own care under CDPAP chooses who provides it, but PPL is the entity that processes the paycheck, withholds taxes and, according to this lawsuit, is where a wage dispute over that pay actually gets litigated.
What A Personal Assistant Should Watch For Next
Neither source reviewed for this article states a separate claim form that a covered personal assistant must file to receive payment, and the settlement administrator’s site directs anyone with questions to its full notice document or its contact page rather than a claims portal. That detail matters for a class member deciding whether to act now: the site’s current instruction is to review the notice and wait for the November 10 hearing, not to submit a claim before then. A caregiver who is unsure whether they fall inside the March 2025-to-April 2026 window, or inside the four named counties, is the kind of question the settlement administrator’s own contact page is built to answer directly, rather than guessing from a forwarded notice or a call from an unfamiliar number.
A Settlement Still Waiting On One Court Date
The Calderon settlement covers about 200,000 home care personal assistants across four New York counties, and it will not become final until the November 10 hearing plays out in front of the Eastern District of New York court. In the months leading up to that hearing, a class member’s practical task is telling a real settlement notice from a copycat, and keeping a record of the notice while the case moves toward that court date.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System organizes the four-date rule for reading a class-action settlement notice line by line and a claim log built for tracking a filing once one becomes available, alongside the source vault of 12 official places unclaimed money can sit.
Walk through the four-date rule ahead of the Nov. 10 hearing in The Settlement & Refund Recovery System.
This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
